Hilary Lyon’s richly comic and acutely observed romp does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a bit of a farce.
This is Edinburgh’s Morningside under the microscope and about as far from other highly marketed stereotypical versions of that world as you can imagine. That’s because it is actually funny!
Susie (Hilary Lyon) and Jennifer (Gail Watson) are neighbours. Susie is a dog owning teacher and single mother with an adopted mixed race teenage son, Mikey (Buchan Lennon) who is ‘too cool for homework’ and a sister Chrissie (Clare Waugh) who, in spite of living in the technical 21st century, has swallowed whole the mores of New Age living. Jennifer, known to Susie as ‘Maleficent’, is uptight; married to Murray; sends her weans to one of the Edinburgh schools ‘…that keep on costing’; is a drinker of big brand cairry oot coffee and, significantly for this wee flight of fancy, was a childhood champion swimmer. These neighbours are not a match made in heaven.
Things come to a head when Jennifer arrives at Susie’s door to confront her with a string of niggles. After some verbal ping pong, her list of petty frustrations escalates to a full -scale barney followed by a cat fight.
Music, like a cross between the now ancient Keystone Cops and the slightly less ancient Benny Hill Show, is used to accompany some frantic chasing round a table and the ‘89 film Dead Calm (or more recently tv drama Line of Duty) where a ‘corpse’ is never quite dead comes to mind, though hilarity not horror is the order of the day here.
Lyon’s script exposes class attitudes and presumptions in her slice of suburbia- style life in the Capital that’s full of comic twists and turns before it’s neat bit of table turning at the end. Her astute laugh a minute lines are brilliantly delivered by a top notch cast of three women who put their full weight behind their roles showing they are on top of their comedy acting game.
With Lennon as the male foil among these three, no wonder he did a lovely wee cartoon heel skip of joy as he left the stage to such appreciative warm applause. Ding dong right enough!
Tuesday 4 – Saturday 8 Apr, 1pm; Fri 7 Apr, 7pm