6th – 15th March 2008

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W
Life’s so dull in the fish factory.
	W
All dressed up and ready for the races		With the ticket tout.
Commentator watching Shelley with her friends		A drunk making a nuisance of himself
A jockey reliving the excitement of the race		A thrilling race
Such a disappointment!		A tense moment for Shelley and Linda
Hitting the bottle.		Different emotions for Pearl, Jan and Linda
Pearl reunited with her dead (?) lover		The Way to Amarillo.

 

From The Birmingham Evening Mail

LADIES' DAY
The Grange Players
Grange Playhouse, Walsall

IT'S a sure fire winner! Amanda Whittington's story of how four bored women fish filleters from Hull spend a day at the races is chokingly funny at times.
They don their posh hats when Ladies' Day at Royal Ascot is relocated to York, and as the wine flows their tongues loosen up and a few sexy secrets are up and running.
Pearl (Lynne Young) decides to treat her workmates Jan (Rosemary Manjunath), Shelley (Kate Rock) and Linda (Jessica Bennett) to the big day out to celebrate her impending early retirement, and the excitement mounts as the fab foursome seem to be heading for a betting roll-up jackpot.
But before the last race the ladies experience some sparkling encounters with a lisping TV reporter with an eye for a filly, a struggling Irish jockey and a drunk who has lost the lot trying to back a winner.
And excellent as the four women are, they are pipped at the post in the laughter stakes by the only man in the cast, Gary Pritchard. He plays all the men, including Pearl's secret lover, but he gives a particularly brilliant performance when, dressed in full jockey's colours, he mounts a stool to demonstrate with considerable skill, how he rode the one winner of his handicapped career.
Directed by Paul Viles and produced by Elizabeth Smith, Ladies Day runs to Saturday March 15. A racing certainty.

VERDICT: * * * *

PAUL MARSTON