Lorraine’s Hair & Face is a play telling the story of a quiet salon facing closure, police investigation and a lovestruck proprietor. Owner Lorraine (Andrea Powell), apprentice Jade (Geraldine Hickey) along friend and neighbourhood gossip Bev (Scott Brennan) fumble their way through the disasters at the beauty palace while breaking out into the odd song.
In addition to the wacky plot points, daggy costuming and bizzare behaviour of the characters, a lot of the humour was derived from double and single entendres, all delivered in a hilariously ignorant bogan manner much like a bizzaro episode of ‘Kath and Kim’. Plenty of disturbing and off colour references enforced the strange tone of the story and resulted in a combination of groans, recoils and fits of laughter.
In keeping with the tone of the show there was plenty of overacting which gave it a “so dodgy that it’s hilarious” quality. They constantly struggled in stifling laughter so they were having a fun time on stage and their enthusiasm was definitely infectious. There was a lot of bitchy self criticism dotted throughout the script that showed they weren’t taking themselves too seriously and the audience could easily be in on the joke. Geraldine was especially brilliant as the dim witted Jade, a perfectly execution of a downtrodden character that was always the butt of the joke. Being the token bloke, Scott handled a couple of male roles beautifully and Andrea inhabited the unhinged Lorraine with ease.
Being a three hander, they employed some creative methods in introducing extra characters to the story. Most of the clientèle were portrayed by rag dolls and the part of Pam Panache (beauty guru and socialite) was played by all three of the cast at different points, each giving her their own spin.
For a musical they certainly didn’t cram in too many songs. The show stopping numbers that did feature were charmingly with their wonky singing accompanied by hilarious backing vocals, dance move and wacky gestures. Scott had been involved in musical work previously and had the strongest voice, but he did struggle when singing as a female character so that put them on a level playing field.
A creatively decorated set depicting the salon was the focus of the show with external scenes either occurring at stage left or off stage with graphic commentary by the characters. Some short stage blackouts were employed to enable costume/prop changes; sometimes too short leaving the cast creatively ad libbing as they scrambled to prepare for the next scene. Various sound effects were used to great comedic effect and recorded new reports helped propel the story along.
This was a wonderfully daggy and silly show that didn’t adhere too strictly to the musical theatre genre, giving it a loose and fun feel. This is definitely a great show to experience.
For booking details visit the Comedy Festival website