REVIEW: Cowbois at the RSC is a trail and saddle-blazing winner, five stars

REVIEW by Steve Sutherland: Cowbois, Swan Theatre, until 18th November

Five stars *****

There’s this thing about Natty Bumppo… Hang on, Natty who? Natty Bumppo. Natty’s the hero of The Longstocking Tales, the series of five books author James Fenimore Cooper wrote about frontiersman Natty between 1827 and 1841 which are widely accepted as the archetype from which American shaped its founding mythology - the Western. In lieu of some factual history to ennoble the genocide upon which its nation was based, America latched onto the fictional Bumppo for his stoicism in the face of adversity, his self-reliance, his ruggedness, fearlessness and ingenuity to manufacture the ideal American male as later portrayed in the characters of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, the Marlboro Man and the Lone Ranger etc.