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Hauns Aff Ma Haunted Bin!

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Four stars 

 

Halloween is about to bite, the party frocks are on, and a creepy time is about to be had by all round at Auntie Sandra’s place. Such is the state of play in Éimi Quinn’s new comedy for A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s ongoing season of lunchtime theatre. Sandra and her niece Lisa are dressed to kill, and judging by the fact that Sandra has just battered Lisa’s cheating husband into the kitchen Lino, death very much becomes them. 

 

But what to do with the body? The only solution, it seems, is to do a Sweeney Todd and cut their prey into enough tiny pieces to fill up several bin bags. If only the duo’s stream of gentleman callers weren’t constantly interrupting them from the task at hand, be it busy body neighbour Dennis, whose sole saving grace is his intimate knowledge of bin collecting times; or crap clairvoyant Mark, who seems intent on attempting the exorcise the place. With an unseen builder also trying to get through Auntie Sandra’s now blood soaked front door, how the hell are the murderous pair expected to keep a lid on things? 

 

By taking a serious subject such as domestic violence and turning it into a madcap revenge comedy as she has done here, Quinn pulls off a similar trick to what she did earlier this year with assisted dying in her last A Play, a Pie and a Pint show, Dookin’ Oot. Both go for the jugular in terms of laughs that don’t so much tap a vein of gallows humour as stab it into submission.

 

Jennifer Dick’s production navigates a trio of increasingly madcap turns from Isabelle Joss as Auntie Sandra, Gavin Jon Wright as assorted men-folk, and Quinn herself as Lisa. A word as well for the scene stealing supporting artist on stage throughout, billed here as Oprah Binfrey. A waste disposable receptacle probably hasn’t cleaned up this much since Dusty Bin was last wheeled out on to TV quiz show 3-2-1 for no discernible reason back in the seventies. Here, however, the result is a darkly funny  tale of the unexpected and an everyday horror show that will have you in bits. 


The Herald, October 29th 2025

 

ends

 

 

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