Skip to main content

Meme Girls

Oran Mor, Glasow

Four stars

 

Fame, as every wannabe pop star knows, costs. In the social media age, where everyone is famous for a lot less than five minutes, you can go viral as the next big thing one minute and be last year’s spam within seconds. This is the reality the two young women in Andy McGregor’s bite-size new musical are forced to square up to for this latest edition of A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s ongoing lunchtime theatre season. 

 

Jade is a serious budding songwriter with an introspective air who pens power ballads in her bedroom, and would prefer to blend into the background before heading off to university. Clare, on the other hand, may have the voice of an angel, but she‘s the life and soul of any party until she crashes. When an ill-timed incident is captured on Tik Tok, she becomes a star for all the wrong reasons. Not that this bothers her, mind you, as her craving for the spotlight makes for a lucrative if grotesque way to make the big time. Jade, meanwhile, returns to her keyboard before the pair are thrown together again for one last number. 

 

McGregor’s play is a meticulously observed study of vaulting ambition, and how untutored talent can be warped by a mix of vanity, desperation and the addictive allure of interacting with strangers. Framed as each girl confesses all for a warts and all documentary on Fraser Lappin’s pink boudoir of a set, McGregor’s dialogue is delivered with fine tuned interplay by Julia Murray as Jade and Yana Harris as Clare. Both actors spar as beautifully as they duet on McGregor’s handful of songs that drive the story.

 

The technology may be different here, but the play’s look at the fickle hand of fame and the disposability of pop bubblegum is as timelessly familiar as its depiction of the power plays between female friends.  It is this latter attribute that gives the play its charm in a work where pop doesn’t quite eat itself, but it comes pretty close.


The Herald, June 5th 2025

 

ends

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) ...