Theatre
Turns of the Tide
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
four stars
It’s Christmas Eve onboard a cruise ship, and Sandy and Rose – aka The Heather Belles frae sunny Bo’ness – have one final show before heading home to mother.
As the buoyantly-rouged, ever-smiley duo run through some Heilan’ chorusses in their cabin, Lynn Ferguson’s play has hints of a drolly affectionate tribute to those kitsch’n’mini-kilted showbiz sisters, Fran and Anna.
But as the final notes of ‘Donald, where’s your troosers’ end, and Sandy (Julie Coombe) declares she doesn’t want to sing the song ever again, Ferguson merrily bounces us into a comedy of sisterhood hiccups that go beyond repertoire decisions.
A line that creeps in, more than once, sums up a core theme of the piece: ‘sometimes the truth is just too sore.’ For Rose (Libby McArthur) there are a lot of painful truths that must be kept under wraps.
There’s the fact that she and Sandy have been the Heather Belles since 1959 – do the maths and you’ll understand the defiant eye-shadow and lippy – and there’s the mystery surrounding their unknown father.
INTERVIEW: Fran and Anna ride again. Almost
Rose compensates by snarfing down Jaffa Cakes and fantasising about Royal connections. Sandy, however, channels her curiosity into internet searches that throw up answers which totally unstitch the fabric of their entire lives. And this is where Ferguson edges the daftness that Coombe and McArthur have delivered with hilarious aplomb into a confrontation with bruising realities that neither woman would have envisaged.
I’ll leave you to discover the Heather Belles’ secrets with them, but prepare to be touched by how they respond to lingering sore truths, and choose to be themselves – perhaps for the first time ever. Is it a wee bit sentimental? Oh, absolutely – but as written by Ferguson, directed by Beth Morton and performed by two singing stoatirs as Sandy and Rose, it carries its tender-hearted side with welcome sincerity.
Mark McDonnell, meanwhile, deserves a medal for his cameo in a clingy unitard.
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