Directed by Kate Nelson

20-22 May 2004
The Arches, Glasgow

6-28 August 2005
Scotland's Theatre Gateway, Edinburgh

Join ‘the rising star of Scottish theatre’ (Observer) for a play about the pop songs you listen to when you have a broken heart. It’s an eccentric and energetic pastiche of celebrity culture that is like Cinderella rewritten by the Dalai Lama. The piece focuses on the conflict between pop and classical music as a metaphor for the ways that 'high culture' can be used as a form of snobbery and class conflict. It’s a tale of missing fingers, headbanging, spanking, betting shops, a dead dad left in his bed for weeks on end, Buddhists, wigs, Gladys Knight singing Help me make it through the night and an awful lot of white elastic.

This follows the success of David Leddy’s previous shows On The Edge (* * * * A tour de force - The List) and In The Shade (Momentous… extraordinary… a genuine five-star prickle down the spine – The Scotsman)

The show follows Stella Ashputtle, a thoroughly hum-drum middle-aged woman who works in a betting shop. Terrible at her job, even going so far as accidentally stapling a bet to her thumb, she starts looking for a new employer. She finds herself applying for a cleaning job with a glamour-puss top model and is thrown into a heady world of fashion stylists, PR girls and media tycoons. Stella finds, to her great surprise, that the high-fashion crowd love her down-to-earth philosophy.

* * * * "Beautiful" The Scotsman

"Warm, compelling, emotional, profound" The List

"Blissfully different and entertaining theatre" Mail on Sunday

"Funny, fluent, flamboyant" The Scotsman

"High quality" Glasgow Herald

"Extravagant" Scotland on Sunday

* * * * "Enchanting" Edinburgh Guide

CRITIC'S CHOICE The Guardian
CRITIC'S CHOICE The Scotsman
CRITIC'S CHOICE The Sunday Times
CRITIC'S CHOICE Attitude Magazine
CRITIC'S CHOICE The Evening Times
CRITIC'S CHOICE Scotland on Sunday