Watching Tony Roper’s classic comedy play, can make you feel a bit like an eavesdropper.
It’s so beautifully written and performed, that almost immediately you feel like you’ve been transported back to the 1950s and are also in a Glasgow washhouse on Hogmanay, enjoying a wee dram and a laugh with your pals while, at the same time, trying to batter through your pile of washing so you can get home in time for the bells.
It’s been 30 years since actor and writer, Tony Roper, put pen to paper and created, The Steamie, but it feels as fresh as ever.
Time has been kind to it while it serves as a brilliant reminder as to how labour-intensive life was for some of our mothers and grandmothers in the days when having a washing machine in the house was but a pipe dream.
Dolly (Libby McArthur); Mrs Culfeathers (Mary McCusker); Magrit (Carmen Pieraccini) and young Doreen (Fiona Wood) are four pals who regularly meet up in the Carnegie Street Steamie. Between scrubbing clothes and sneakily boiling up manky overalls, they share gossip and chat, their troubles, hopes and dreams.
Libby was superb as kind-hearted and slightly dotty Dolly; Mary superb as elderly care-worn Mrs Culfeathers whose thoughts, on Hogmanay, turned to the great-grandchildren she’d yet to meet.
Fiona, as recently-married Doreen, was full of hope for the future and dreamed of the day she’d get a council house in Drumchapel, one which came with an indoor toilet and a telephone, while Carmen was knock-out as quick-witted and sharp-tongued Magrit, a woman you wouldn’t go home to with an opened wage packet.
Steven McNicoll played Andy, the Steamie handyman who felt it was his duty to give the girls a laugh, and his portrayal of a man quietly and steadily getting drunk as the night wore on was superb.
With songs that will make you laugh – and put a lump in your throat; hilarious scenes set around everything from fancying Tony Curtis to butcher’s mince and performing the tango, The Steamie, is unashamedly nostalgic and a classic Scottish play that everyone should see at least once.
It is at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness until Saturday, October 7.