Ladies' Day

Amanda Whittington’s gently humorous play is inspired by the relocation of Royal Ascot to York in 2005. It tells the comical trials and tribulations of four working class Yorkshire women who attend Ladies’ Day.  The story begins on the fish-packing line in Hull as we are introduced to Pearl, Jan, Shelly and Linda.

Congratulations must go to those who had designed, painted and dressed the set. The staging of this production was simple and effective and transferred from the fish-packing line to the Winning Post enclosure and back again with great ease.  I liked the detail of the constantly changing hands on the clock at the racecourse, which supported the subtle changes in time as the scenes progressed.

Jenny Colclough (Director) had cast the show well with Julie Blake, Pauline Mead, Nerys McCabe and Helen Jones taking on the four lead roles. Diction and delivery of lines was good with just the occasional prompt required and good character development throughout.

Leading the story line was Julie Blake as Pearl, who gave a very natural performance, which made me invest in her storyline and want to find out more about what had happened to her mysterious love interest, Barry. It was so well played that I almost forgot that the play was scripted. The audience were quite happy to accept Pearls infidelity and it reminded me a little of ‘Shirley Valentine’.

Pauline Mead played Jan and really did bring this character to life. Pauline provided us with many humorous and memorable scenes. The drunken scenes were controlled and gave just the right balance to prevent the show from becoming slapstick, helping it to remain believable. 

Nerys McCabe played Shelley as the feisty wanna-be ‘WAG’ with a humorous brassy confidence that helped to support the characters shallowness.

Helen Jones as Linda the obsessed Tony Christie Fan was played well and with just enough coy shyness to make her alluring to Patrick (The Irish Jockey).

This is a perfect show for groups short of men as the other 6 parts were played by just two other actors (Steve Tudor and Andy Jones) who hopped from one role to the other in a great display of varied characterisation.

I did find the final encounter between Pearl and Barry a little confusing as I wasn’t sure if they had met in person to find out of Barry’s illness or if Pearl had found out from another source and was imaging the encounter. It didn’t however detract from the overall performance.

The audience were well invested in this show and with the final result of the racing accumulator revealed in the ‘final furlong’ we found ourselves happy to have been taken along for this thrilling ride.

A great night out and many laughs along the way. Thank you WADOS for my invite and I look forward to seeing your future productions.

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