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| Bombshells is at the Abbey Theatre Studio |
A BOMBSHELL is being dropped in the Abbey Theatre Studio this week - the fact that male strippers aren't all that is needed for a good girls' night out.
The Company of Ten is rounding off an excellent season with Joanna Murray-Smith's Bombshells, four monologues in a similar vein to Alan Bennett's famous Talking Heads but with a totally female slant.
Murray-Smith originally wrote six monologues and the Company of Ten is performing four with a clear split between two younger and two older women.
All four are exquisite and while inevitably the largely-female audience related more to one than the others, the skill of the writing and performance made each of them unbearably poignant but very funny at the same time.
It makes for a perfect evening - a lot of laughs combined with real insight into the human (in this case women's) condition.
Jo Emery and Pat Hughes split the directing honours with Jo directing the two younger women and Pat the two older.
With barely any props, the four actresses rely almost completely on their acting abilities and at the end of the performance on Monday night, they got what is as close to a standing ovation in the Studio as I have seen.
Helen Miller has the unenviable task of opening proceedings as Theresa who comes on stage in her basque and garter and in a state of hopeless excitement about her forthcoming marriage.
Reality soon hits home with her eleventh-hour recognition that the glamour of a wedding is only for one day - and marriage is for life.
Helen captures Theresa's mix of wedding fever and marriage blues perfectly, particularly where she poignantly calls for her mum and begs to go home to a hot water bottle and cup of cocoa.
Equally skilled in her role is Claire Millins as the stressed mother-of-three Meryl Davenport who runs around like a headless chicken in her role as mother and wife but never feels she is good enough.
By the end of the monologue, Meryl is displaying all the exhaustion of a woman with a family in the modern age where the bar rises all the time and she has no chance of getting over it into the magazine-perfect world of motherhood which she secretly relishes.
The roles of the two older women are taken by Sue Dyson as Tiggy Entwistle and Margaret Metcalf as Gloria Webster.
Sue is one of those consummate comedy actresses who can say just as much with a small movement as they can in words and the role of Tiggy, abandoned by her husband and now devoting her energies to cacti and succulents, could have been written for her.
Margaret's Gloria is a masterclass in how an upright widow of a certain age who craves the unexpected but never really expects to find it can be brought back to life by a surprising encounter.
Bombshells is perfect in the confines of the Studio but sadly that limits the audience who can see it. If there are any tickets still available from the box office on 01727 857861, snap them up - this is entertainment of the highest order.
Bombshells is at the Abbey Theatre Studio until Saturday, July 12.
© Herts Advertiser 2008. Reproduced by permission