Theatre reviews: The Steamie | Ready Tae Drap

The Steamie, Dundee Rep ★★★★

Ready Tae Drap, Oran Mor ★★★★

Two shows about Glasgow women; and although they were written 40 years apart, and take very different approaches politically and dramatically, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that these two plays are still sisters, under the skin.

Tony Roper’s 1987 classic The Steamie - based on Roper’s own memories of accompanying his mum to the public wash-house as a wee boy - is a famous and fabulous piece of Glasgow myth-making, lifted and driven by Dave Anderson’s breathtaking playlist of songs.

Like the play itself, the songs are poised at the moment in 1950 when Glasgow’s old working-class tenement life was about to change for ever; and as the four female characters gather in their local steamie, a few hours before the Hogmanay bells, the old (lovely Mrs Culfeathers) are full of nostalgia, while the young (newlywed Doreen) are dreaming of an escape from grimy city streets to “a home in an avenue” in newly-built Drumchapel, with “three bedrooms and a view.”

The middle-aged meanwhile - motor-mouthed Dolly, and Magrit, the sharp-witted mother of a growing family - are working too damned hard to think much about social change; the change they mainly wish for is in the behaviour of their disappointing menfolk.

Together at the steamie, though, these four are able to support one another both physically and emotionally, talking, singing, reflecting, and even attempting a Hogmanay tango in memory of Dolly’s dancing youth; and although this is an idealised dream of times long gone, it touches on such profound truths about the growing individualism of an increasingly affluent society, and the loneliness that often comes with it, that it remains irresistible to audiences, even today.

In Tony Roper’s new touring production for Rerr Terr Productions, Louise McCarthy, Ali Cleland, Eden Barrie and Lesley Mackie bring all four characters brilliantly to life, relishing every moment of legendary comic sequences including the imaginary phone call to Drumchapel, and Mrs Culfeathers’s mighty Galloway’s mince story. Paul J Corrigan offers cheerful support as the steamie’s janitor, Andy.

And if the songs, in this version, have a way of appearing too suddenly in the drama, with a boom of heavily amplified keyboard, that’s a minor imperfection in yet another loving and hilarious revival of a great 20th century Scottish classic; full of wit, lyricism, moments of real beauty, and truly formidable comic and dramatic flair.

The Glasgow-based actor and writer Eimi Quinn, meanwhile, is a rising star of Scottish theatre; and in many ways, her new Play, Pie Pint drama Ready Tae Drap is her most impressive achievement yet. Set in a Glasgow tower block lift stuck between floors, the play introduces us to Lauren (our friend and narrator, an early thirties good time girl en route to a chums’ night out), along with her neighbours, elderly Pat and young mum Aaliyah, about to give birth to her third baby.

At first, the banter in the lift is genial and fairly predictable; but as the night wears on, Pat’s newly-acquired political views (gleaned from the internet and GB News) become increasingly apparent, ending in a tirade about how Aaliyah should go back “home”, although she has lived in Scotland since she was a baby. Aaliyah hits back, for once, dismissing Pat as a “vile woman”; an appalled Lauren desperately tries to referee, calling Pat out on her dodgy sources of “information”. Then mother nature intervenes, and basic humanity reasserts itself, at least for a while.

Ready Tae Drap is a clever and disconcerting play, in other words; steeped in the same tradition of Glasgow collectivism and humanity that gave us The Steamie and more recent legends, but also clear-eyed about the new threats to that strong tradition - and powerfully conscious that it can never, even for a second, be taken for granted.

The Steamie is at Dundee Rep until 12 September, and on tour across Scotland until 14 November. Ready Tae Drap is at Oran Mor, Glasgow, until 5 September.

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