Ladies' Day

This was a play about 4 ladies who work at a fish packing plant in Hull. They brighten up their humdrum existence by heading off to York racecourse to celebrate the retirement of one of their number, Pearl. This happens to be the year, 2005, when Royal Ascot decamped to York, so a very exciting occasion.

The play deals obviously with their friendship, but also with their hopes, dreams, their opinions, their disappointments, their situation in life with all its ups and downs. It deals with love, or lack of it; family and romantic relationships; our society’s adoration of ‘celebrity’; our acquisitive buy now pay later, culture; even the relevance or otherwise of the monarchy, and much much more.

Prior’s Field School has a fine theatre with tiered seating, and a cosy atmospheric bar, which GTG always seems to find something original to add to. This year there was a gorgeous stand of hats manned by the local milliner who made them, a great idea.

Quite a minimalist set – just grey tiled walls, with one of those plastic strip curtains you find in factories, and a table with four fish boxes behind which the ladies set to work. Buckets and pails suggested the cleanliness requirements at the factory. The racecourse set was a green swathe of lawn plus some fencing, a table or two to place drinks on. Of course, various bottles of bubbly were brandished, and a spare handbag played a fairly important role.

Both lighting and sound were very effective throughout. The music of Tony Christie was peppered throughout the piece, as one of the girls was obsessed by him.

The factory girls were all clad in pristine white overalls and caps. Very cleverly, these were removed at one stage to reveal the ladies’ colourful Ascot outfits, complete with hats and fascinators.

Four ladies of various ages, long-term colleagues and friends from the fish factory, indulge in jolly banter over the fish boxes. They range in age from Pearl, whose retirement is imminent; through Jan, single mum whose daughter is about to go off to university; Shelley, bubbly, single, mid-30s or so; to Linda, early twenties, with a sad, lonely kind of existence. Each day they discuss what they had for tea last night, and Shelley’s latest escapades, and that’s about as exciting as it gets. It is decided that something needs to be done to celebrate Pearl’s retirement, she wants no party, no fuss, but finally hits upon the idea of going to York racecourse to be part of Royal Ascot’s Ladies’ Day, to be held there that year. Great excitement ensues. She has an ulterior motive, which we only discover later. The idea is to treat the others from her Rainy-Day fund. As the decision is made very late, they’ll have to acquire tickets from a tout.

All the while, life in the fish packing plant in all its humdrum mediocrity is suggested by four other characters moving boxes, mopping the floor, and so on.  The foreman, Joe, appears now and again to check on progress, give instructions, and engage in jolly chit chat.

Once the Ladies’ Day trip has been decided upon, excitement mounts as outfits must be chosen. There was a fun scene as the girls stripped off their fish factory overalls, protected from view, if I remember rightly, by the other four sweepers, to reveal their Ascot outfits and hats.

Disappointment is great when they realise, having met a tout, that the rainy-day money will not stretch to such inflated ticket prices. All is saved when Shelley finds a handbag in the loo, which luckily not only contains a good bit of cash, but also four tickets for the Enclosure.

So, four different ladies, let me start with Linda, the youngest. Harriet Hall created for us a vulnerable, innocent young woman, totally lacking in self-confidence, whose main joy in life seemed to be hero-worshipping Tony Christie – indeed all the horses backed by the group were Christie song titles. Her alcoholic sponger of a mother had recently descended upon her, and Linda didn’t have the courage to tell her to leave. ‘She’s my mum’, she answered plaintively when challenged by one of the others. On meeting the lonely jockey Patrick, after she’d gone off in a huff having been teased, we delighted in her finding herself in his obvious admiration for her. A fine touching performance from Ms Hall.

Then there was Shelley, loud, opinionated, glamorous lover of a good time, the ‘entertainer’ of the group. She hoped to land a rich man that day, or to be ‘discovered’ as a celebrity tv star, after she was chosen by commentator Jim for a tv interview. Of course, she had her problems too, with debt collectors chasing her, following reckless spending sprees. In fact, she was in despair, in a spiralling circle leading unavoidably, it would seem, to the bailiffs. She shocked the others, she took risks, she made them laugh. She was shocked herself when Jim grabbed her, and she realised where all his attention was leading to. A strong performance from Sarah Newey.

Jan was excitedly waiting on hearing the results of her daughter's exams, and taking her up to university, a new phase of life awaited this single mum, alone in the house after 18 years of hard work, bringing up her daughter having been deserted by her husband. She hit the bubbly more extensively than the others, and ended up much the worse for wear, and so did unfortunately her hat! Pearl entrusted her secret to Jan, which she then, under the power of the bottle, promptly blurted out to the others. But she had a little secret of her own. Well played by Rosalind Robins.

Pearl was a wise and gentle soul, able to hand out sound advice to all her younger colleagues, very much an ‘older sister’ figure. She didn’t seem too enthused about the idea of the static caravan moored at the seaside – that seems to have been her husband’s idea. When she confided her secret to Jan at the races – that she had had a lover for seven years, a bookie, the depth of her character was enhanced. The surprising ending with the ‘last dance’ was tenderly carried out without being mawkish. A truly believable character portrayal by the wonderful Denise Hodgkiss.

One must also praise the two actors who provided the supporting characters: Rob Richmond, who played the jolly foreman, the slick tv presenter, and the lonely and fed up (and starving hungry!) jockey; and David Dray, who played the ticket tout, the drunken punter who had lost his shirt, and Barry, Pearl’s lover.

The humour was great, as was the fact that all four ladies kept up their Yorkshire accents throughout. This was a well-directed, very funny, yet also thought-provoking production, with all the likeable characters finely drawn.

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