How can you improve on floor-filling classics like I Want To Dance With Someone and If I Could Turn Back Time? Do them in Doric and throw a pie and a pint into the deal.
Which is what the talented team from Aye Tunes! are offering at The Lemon Tree this week in My Doric Diary as part of the hugely popular A Play, A Pie And A Pint series.
“It’s a Doric jukebox musical,” said Katie Barnett, the Fraserburgh-born actor and singer who is one half of Aye Tunes! with her actor-musician husband, James Siggens.
Katie said the new show was born during lockdown when she and James started posting videos on Tik Tok of him playing guitar and her singing pop songs but in Doric.
@aye.tunes ‘A pop song in your own accent please’ #doric #scots #singingcover
“We did it for a bit of fun and people seemed to really enjoy it. So it kind of spiralled from there and we ended up writing a musical that’s all in Doric. The songs are all pop songs that everybody will know but with a Doric twist,” said Katie, now based in Glasgow.
My Doric Diary has all the songs you play at weddings
“They’re all classics. My favourite one is I Want To Dance With Somebody, but it’s Ah Want Tae Dunce Wi’ Somebody. We have If I Could Turn Back Time and Don’t Stop Believing. We tried to think of all the songs you play at weddings.”
My Doric Diary – at The Lemon Tree from Tuesday April 19 to Saturday April 23 is a heartwarming story about love and letting go, set in the Broch on Hogmanay when Daisy is on her own in her bedroom and about to turn 17
“We see she is quite reserved, she doesn’t really go out much, but she is desperate to go to the Hogmanay party at the Fraserburgh Leisure Centre, but her granny won’t let her to,” said Katie.
“We discover along the way she has lost her mum, but during the show, we get to see her reconnect with her mum.”
This week’s run at The Lemon Tree will be a homecoming for the show – and for Katie – after My Doric Diary had successful runs in Edinburgh’s Traverse and Glasgow’s Oran Mor.
Katie said she was delighted that in both cities, the audiences took to her undiluted Doric approach to the show.
Katie was overwhelmed by reaction to Doric on stage
“It’s been quite overwhelming because obviously this means a lot to me,” said Katie, adding she had been wanting to reconnect to her Doric roots after almost 10 years away from Fraserburgh.
“Our director, Dougie (Irvine) is also from Fraserburgh so we had a lot of conversations about how Doric we should make it and whether it would be alienating. But we diced no, this is a Doric story and we are going to go for it and people will have to come along for the ride.
“It’s been amazing to see the reception because everybody is so there and so in on the story. It’s lovely. It seems the Doric hasn’t alienated anyone, it seems quite the opposite that people are charmed by it.
“It’s nice to see that language being up on stage.”
My Doric Diary is set for sell-out run at The Lemon Tree
She’s hoping Aberdeen audiences will also enjoy My Doric Diary – especially as all the shows have already sold out.
“I’m really excited to go to The Lemon Tree. I’ve never performed professionally in Aberdeen, so it will be really cool to do that with my own thing and in Doric,” said Katie, who graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2016 and has appeared in several National Theatre Of Scotland productions.
“I hope people feel a sense of recognition, of being able to see their own language up there, the way they speak. I don’t think that’s something we see a lot of at all.
“So I am intrigued to see how it goes in Aberdeen, who knows. But I’m excited and I think it’ll be really good.
“Also, there are jokes in the show that don’t land in Glasgow and Edinburgh because they’re so broad and I always think it will be interesting to see how it lands in Aberdeen because people will understand it.”
Katie has another reason to look forward to the show arriving at The Lemon Tree. A reunion with her former drama teacher from Fraserburgh – who also happens to be director Dougie’s mother, Alice.
“She’s coming to see the show and I’m really excited. When I was really young, she was the one who said to me ‘you know you can do this as a job’. She always encouraged me to follow it and do it, so it was her who put me on this path,” said Katie, who cut her acting teeth with the Fraserburgh Junior Arts Society.
How to find out more about A Play, A Pie And A Pint
Katie hopes Aberdeen audiences will also enjoy the popular format offered by A Play, A Pie And A Pint series with its early evening start and short running time.
“It’s the accessibility of it. It’s just 50 minutes – that’s how long our show is – and you get a bite to eat, you get a drink and you get to see a show then head off. It’s unique and I think it’s an amazing thing they have created.”
For more information on A Play, A Pie And A Pint, go to playpiepint.com
