Scotty Road - The Musical

Written and performed by Gillian Hardie and Keddy Sutton
Unity Theatre
30th October 2012

Reviewed by Jennifer Keegan

The show opens with Caz and Britney introducing themselves and then summarising their situation by taking off a big musical number from Chicago, reworded and improvised with hilarious results. Wearing pyjamas and Ugg boots, with underwear showing and rollers in their hair, they are brash, rough, loud and unsightly, but instantly likeable and amusing. The explained how they ended up in prison after a fight in Primark with another reworded hit form Chicago. The cleverly written song was full of jokes and clever one liners about Greggs, fruit shoots and cheap Primark rings. Referring to the Unity theatre we are sitting in as the ‘un-ity’ theatre got big laughs, as did their cheaper jokes about knowing Purple Aki's cleaner and gags about tampon instruction leaflets.

As the show continued, it got a bit too silly with a pantomime style ‘he’s behind you’ section whilst they were in prison. This was followed by an American accent show off part where Britney imitated Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz, complete with gags about the lion going through the menopause. Again, she did do the imitation wonderfully; it just dragged on a bit and felt overplayed. It seemed to go a bit downhill from there, with a phone smuggled into prison being dialled by pelvic floor muscles. The song ‘Don’t Cry For Me Marge and Tina’, a take on an Evita song and a plea to Scouse actresses for help was what saved the play from descending too far into silliness and mucking about.

Both Gillian Hardie as Caz, and Keddy Sutton as Britney are fantastic, and both can really sing. Hardie's vocals steal the show as she has such a power to her voice that she expertly controls. Both are comfortable improvisers and manage hecklers like seasoned professionals. Whist is it not a serious musical, and relies heavily on a northern sense of humour of local knowledge; it is cheeky and fun production, the kind of night that would attract hen parties and groups of girls out for a laugh. If you like your comedy obvious and not too taxing, this is the show for you. Overall a fun show with plenty of cheap laughs.

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