Miss Shamrock's World Of Glamorous Flight
Miss Shamrock's World Of Glamorous Flight
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
Say "trolley-dolly" in Miss Shamrock's hearing, and she'd wither you with a look so caustic, it could strip the varnish off the Pope's own chair. She'd no doubt mutter an apologetic Hail Mary afterwards. Because even if you can take the girl out of a small village in Ireland - send her flying round the world, living her dreams of travel and glamour as a long-haul air hostess - you can't quite excise the solid upbringing that was meant to keep her pious, dutiful and down-to-earth.
Pauline Knowles, our flight attendant on this lunchtime trip from droll anecdote to chilling wake-up call, has the absolute measure of Miss Shamrock as she was back then, and is now. She slips, with unforced ease, into the character's Irish lilt as if it was the silky underwear that's in her luggage, along with the face-creams, duty-free perfume and cosmetics - all essentials, because Miss Shamrock is diligently old-school when it comes to looking good for her first-class passengers.
And, my oh my, does she not have a fine way with the witty words (merrily scripted for her by Martin Travers, and directed by Danielle McIlven) and with the globe-trotting accents that colour the observational comedy in a monologue evoking the heyday of air travel - a time before budget airlines, when to be an air hostess was like being in a movie … Or so it seemed to Miss Shamrock as she re-enacts choice memories for the (unseen) teenage visitor with similar career ambitions.
The humour comes with hints of coquettish sauce and barbed asides, but there's an innocence in Miss Shamrock's outlook that is doomed in the end. 'Nuff said. Collect your pie and pint prior to take-off, then sit back and enjoy Miss Knowles in top form.
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