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Scotty
Road - The Musical
Written and performed by Gillian Hardie and Keddy Sutton
30th October 2012
Reviewed by
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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