Is That Too Hot - The MAC until February 10 then touring
BUNS 'r' Us is a busy little hairdressing salon in west Belfast. It’s run by Olive, with a heart of gold but not much in the till. Bills are stuffed away until eviction looms.
But she keeps a brave face, welcomes her clients and trains her staff.
Roisin Gallagher is the lovable Olive who confides in us about her life and the looming crisis.
She remembers the days when it was a perm and cup of tea, now it’s extensions, tints and waxing - upstairs and downstairs!
Soon we meet one of her juniors; Jolene just bounces, twitching leg, a shock of proxied hair, enthusiastic but clueless, doesn’t realise just how funny she is and her facial contortions are hilarious, a touch of Bette Midler.
Granny arrives with her rollator and her ‘inhaler’, an e-cigarette with magic oil provided by Jimmy Jo who got it from somewhere called The Dark Web.
Granny travels on the purple slug, a bendy bus that, she says, thinks it is something and she worries about ‘a hard breakfast at the border’.
Enter Mrs Hughes, booked for a Princess Anne Special, posh when she remembers to speak proper but a woman with a secret and a son called Christo-four who lives in a million pound house in London.
Finally thirty-something Chelsea Marie joins the fun, a stewardess with Cryin Air, about to be married to 20-year-old Mohamed and she’s in to arrange her beauty regime.
All this gives rise to a hilarious night’s entertainment. Olive’s clients are witty and wonderful and all played by Christina Nelson, surely the brightest button in the talented button box of local actors, she’s simply remarkable.
Quick changes, which must require a team of dressers backstage, and not a foot wrong when it comes to individual characteristics, mannerisms or voice.
Patricia Gormley has written a super funny script and Alan McKee has directed with a deft touch. The audience can’t be wrong, a genuine laugh a minute.
And what of Olive and her money worries? That would be telling.
www.themaclive.com
