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One for the girls out for a laugh
Cheese and marmalade sandwich anyone? Bev (Leanne Jones) and Faith (Alison Young) introduce themselves to Sarah (Maureen Nolan) The Naked Truth Wolverhampton Grand *** THIS is
probably one of the few times you will ever see
The Naked Truth
and subtle in the same sentence. The two are hardly on the same planet with the Truth being brash, crude, admittedly at times very funny but entrenched firmly in girls’ night out territory with two manicured fingers to the world. It tells the tale of five disparate women who
sign up for a pole dancing class in the village hall. There is randy
Bev, played by Leanne Jones, who was the original Tracy Turnblad in the
West End production of Hairspray incidentally. She is the in-yer-face
champion of larger ladies everywhere, taking on all comers in her sexual
exploits while her friend Faith (Alison Young) has never been kissed, or
anything else for that matter, as she stretches the boundaries of dim
towards almost total darkness. Then there is cynical Rita (Sarah White) a
Scouser in a loveless, abusive marriage while tactless Tricia, played
with some style by understudy Wolverhampton born Sophie Michaels, talks
incessantly of her perfect marriage, perfect life and her desire for a
perfect boob job for perfect husband Gareth. Then there is Sarah
(Maureen Nolan) who is, well, normal. Married with kids, no nookie on
the side, no abuse or dark secrets just a husband and family, like most
of the audience really. Their teacher is ex-pole dancer and single mum
Gabby (Nikki Sanderson) who like the rest has a tale to tell. Holding them all together is cancer. Gabby’s mum
died of it and when Sarah is diagnosed with terminal breast cancer the
girls decide to put on a charity show for cancer research which creates
its own finale of a show within a show. As a play though it is all a bit formulaic; we
have fat Bev who has, if not the best, at least the most prolific sex
life but it is all unfulfilled, empty and meaningless and behind the
fun, bawdy façade is a sad person looking for affection and love.
There is Tricia obsessed with new boobs for her
Gareth hiding her insecurity behind a façade of confidence and a slim
perfect body, apart from the boobs that is, who discovers appearance is
not everything and she has to learn to love herself for who she really
is. Be herself and everything will be fine – sort of.. Rita is in a marriage which ended years ago. Her
husband was cheating, and threatening, so Rita stayed for her two girls,
sleeping around in retaliation. Faith, who has done nothing, seen nothing and
who’s only experience of sex comes through the lurid tales of Bev, is
looking not so much for love as her starter for ten - or less for that
matter. Incidentally Alison Young might not be as well
known as other members of the cast but on this performance she certainly
deserves to be. What it all comes down to though, as subtle as a
housebrick through the window, is girl power - empowerment and all that
- showing that a group of stereotype women who may be struggling alone
can achieve anything when they join forces – they can conjure up an
escape for Rita and even find a sex life and love for the virgin no more
Faith along with knocking up a pole dancing show to end the show. The play has laughs, along with a defiance of
breast cancer, which is a constant threat to women just as prostate
cancer is to men, but what the play doesn’t have is substance or depth,
paying no more than lip service to the issues it raises. Sarah has terminal breast cancer, which is probably poignant for Maureen Nolan whose sister Bernie was diagnosed with the disease last April and sisters Anne and Linda had also been diagnosed in 2000 and 2006 while her father Tommy died of liver cancer in 1998. Cancer has been a dark companion for the Nolan family for some time. Yet despite Maureen’s best efforts it was hard to
find any real empathy for Sarah or indeed any of the characters. They
are never really allowed to develop beyond just parts in a play so they
never become people we start to know or care about. This was as far from last week’s offering of
The Pitmen Painters as you could get but then again Dave Simpson’s
play knows its target audience – mainly women on hen nights, GNOs who
roar with laughter at suggestive gestures, sexual references and
innuendo and genitalia jokes of which there were many – women are not
the demure creatures they like us to believe. And to be fair, they loved
it, so what do I know, after all I’m just a bloke. Roger Clarke
And in pole position the next night. . . *** THIS Dave Simpson play, on it's fifth
tour, has been described as tailor-made for women, so maybe that's the
reason I found it rather pedestrian and predictable at times. Since the action revolves round a pole dancing
class you might expect men to be flocking to the theatre, but one rare
gent who squeezed past me to reach his seat in the dress circle with his
wife/partner gave me a sickly grin and said: "Glad you have come". Women made up a huge percentage of the audience
and judging by the cackles of laughter here and there they enjoyed the
activities of the five actresses, four letter words and all. It has similarities with Stepping Out, a play in
which a bunch of women fumbled their way through tap-dancing lessons,
but you just knew they were going to perform impressively before the
final curtain came down. In this case Tricia (Julie Buckfield), Sarah
(Maureen Nolan), Faith (Alison Young), Bev (Leanne Jones) and Rita
(Sarah White) take up pole dancing lessons to get fit, then decide to
use their new skills for the admirable task of raising cash for a breast
cancer charity. During the coaching by Gabby (Nikki Sanderson),
the fact that Sarah has the disease shocks the ladies into action, but
not before their various matrimonial and sexual problems and fantacies
have come to light. The show ends with the five performing some
impressive contortions around three poles. The Naked Truth gets its final exposure on
Saturday night 11.06.11. Paul Marston
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