Ladies' Day

‘Ladies’ Day’ follows four likely lasses from the Hull fish docks on a day trip to the races. Work, love and life are just one long, hard slog for the fish-filleting foursome Pearl, Jan, Shelley and Linda. But their fortunes are set to change when Linda finds tickets to Ladies' Day at Royal Ascot the year it relocated to York.

The play opens in the fish factory, with a working bench, racking and some boxes suitably marked ‘Hull Fish’. In the opening scene with the four ladies behind their bench, in their white coats, hair nets and wellies, I was immediately impressed with the pace of the dialogue. Their individual characters were quickly established and as Pearl was leaving the company, they decided on a day at the races to celebrate and this was agreed with their supervisor Joe, played well by Michael Peden. Their transformation into glamorous outfits fit for Ladies’ Day was great as these were revealed to some nifty choreography and ‘Is this the way to Amarillo’. Throughout Jane Herron (Pearl), Dianne Lloyd (Jan), Liz Toone (Shelley) and Sue Ricketts (Linda) gave excellent performances  as we discovered some sadness as well as excitement in their lives.

On arrival at York, the well painted set was cleverly transformed and the girls soon realised that without tickets they would be at the mercy of the ticket tout. They met Fred, one such tout convincingly played by Joe Herron, but the girls were saved when they found a purse containing four tickets and no sign of the real owner.  Shelley never short of an opinion and always looking for stardom, attracts the attention of a smooth operator TV pundit Jim McCormack, well played by Bill Wilks. Well-paced dialogue with just the right amount of sleaze.

In act 2 we meet Patrick, a jockey, who felt sorry for himself with all the things a jockey has to suffer. His connection with Linda is moving and Joe Herron has some great comedy timing – the scene when he recalls a great win at the age of 21 years was superb and rightly earned a round of audience applause. The scenes where Jim convinces Shelley ‘a star is born’ albeit he has ulterior motives, and where Jan tells of her fondness for Joe their supervisor, were very well played. At a point when the girls have yet to win anything, they take pity on Kevin a drunk gambler, also played well by Pip Barber and give him his train fare home.

We discover that Pearl has been having an affair with Barry a bookie, for 7 years but he suddenly disappeared 3 months earlier without explanation. Her story is convincing and she hopes to find him whilst at the races. Although Barry appears (Mike Fray), we get a clear sense she is imagining a conversation which she had hoped to have with him, and this was sensitively handled by both players as he then drifts away from the scene into the wings. A moving moment.

With the exception of two minor blips, the pace throughout was excellent. The stage was well lit, the characters well dressed and I enjoyed the music played at appropriate moments, that added to the atmosphere. I felt the whole piece was well directed by Andrew Howie, allowing visibility of each aspect of each character. Congratulations to all involved and I look forward to ‘The Box of Delights’ in December.

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