Theatre

Doris, Dolly and the Dressing Room Divas

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Mary Brennan

five stars

OH! THE Deadwood Stage is a-rollin' on over the plains... and a buckskin’d Clare Waugh is giving it laldy as Calamity Jane, flanked by her equally tuneful compadres Frances Thorburn and Gail Watson. Lady in red (and musical director) Hilary Brooks, is smiling, amused and unfazed behind her keyboard, as cunningly wrought harmonies vanish under rapturous broadsides of “Whip crack-away!, Whip crack-away!, Whip crack-away!” from an audience whose spontaneous joining-in simply reinforces the feelgood factor of this rollicking show.

There is, however, more to writer/director Morag Fullarton’s music-theatre piece than an array of much-loved songs. As promised, by the title, we do get Doris (Day) and Dolly (Parton) – we get Judy and Liza and Julie too – but it’s the Dressing Room Divas who assume star status as they morph from anonymous make-up girls into Hollywood icons who are the stuff of glossy legend, and the oxygen of back-lot gossip.

Fullarton’s witty and well-informed script serves up generous helpings of what’s really buried at the foot of each woman’s rainbow: absent fathers, pushy mothers, family poverty and a childhood surrendered to the adult responsibilities of being the chirpy, singing breadwinner. Just enough of the pain, the pills and the imprudent marriages is woven into the wise-cracking banter for us to understand what it took for each of them to go on singing – in Julie Andrews’s case, the real trial was being trapped in a squeaky clean image.

Watson’s raunchy Poppins soon gives the lie to that! Waugh slips into Cabaret mode as Liza Minelli with Thorburn an uncanny Joel Grey, Watson manifests as a well-endowed (on all fronts) Dolly and all three wear their impressive versatility with a twinkle that understands the escapist allure of their chosen songbirds. In Broadway-speak, it’s a lollapalooza that deserves further outings.