The beautiful Princess Theatre was just chock a block full of packs of middle aged ladies in sensible shoes out for a laugh and they certainly got their money’s worth.
This was a well polished delightful show that evolved out of the popular BBC Two television series “Grumpy Old Women”. The producer and writer of that TV show Judith Holder got together with friend Jenny Éclair and decided that it might make a great stage show. They’re not quite sure who thought of it first, I’m guessing there may have been a touch of alcohol involved. Richard Herring was invited to be script editor and the hard work on the script really shows. The original ladies signed up for the production are the same performers who came to tour in Australia, they were co-writer and Perrier winning Jenny Eclair (this is worth seeing, just to see her alone), Dillie Keane who formed the satirical cabaret group “Fascinating Aida”, and Linda Robson most famous for playing Tracey in “Birds of a Feather”.
The set of candy coloured lop-sided furniture looked slightly menacing like something from Mary Leunig or even Escher. After a huge wiz bang intro that included flashing lights, smoke, the theme from ‘Jaws’ and ‘O Fortuna’ from ‘Carmina Burana’ (You’d know it believe me), the three ladies shuffled on in the old style middle aged womens’ uniform of raincoat and headscarf. Jenny then opened the show by shouting “Is it Hot in here?”.
They shared some of the joys of being Grumpy Old Women before whipping of their coats to reveal fashion mistakes often made by women in their age group. Linda was in a nighty (don’t even consider wearing it to the letterbox, it should not leave the house!), Dillie was in an ill fitting taffeta ballgown that had her bra straps hanging out of the unzipped back and Jenny Éclair had the punk teen clothes of the mutton dressed as lamb look (though it actually kind of suited her!).
It was like a glorious well written Festival stand-up show about the universal experience of aging, shared with us by three entertaining women. It was a pity it wasn’t on during the Comedy Festival, but this wasn’t a Festival crowd, they were definitely suburban and it delighted me that they were seeing something so clever, accessible and hilarious (unlike the limp excuses for theatre put out by the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber). My favourite bits included a demonstration of why being pampered with a massage can turn out to be a harrowing experience and a series of vignettes on how the party going experience changes during your life. Other favourite moments were when they cracked each other up, which broke them away from the script into improvised mayhem, such as when Dillie broke a prop.
Dillie Keane was an amazingly talented physical comedienne and Jennie was such a fabulous feisty little pixie, it was a bit sad that Linda’s performance skills have not improved much since Birds of a Feather, though luckily she had the superior script here to pull her through. They ended the show by dancing round their handbags to the Grumpy Women’s adopted anthem, The Bee Gee’s ‘Stayin’ Alive’.
This was not just a series of talking heads or a tedious whinge fest, it was an almost punk celebration of the joys of not aging gracefully, having the freedom to rail at the system (or at least complain to the council) and being a middle-aged force to be reckoned with.
‘Grumpy Old Women Live’ finishes its Australian tour in Perth, playing at Burswood Theatre from Tuesday 29 May to Sunday 3 June. Booking can be made via Ticketek (1300 795 012 or Ticketek ).