Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Gillian Hardie, Keddy Sutton.

With a song in their hearts…well, more of a set of tunes and harmonies that has been lovingly taken from one of the much adored musical of all time and which has had a treatment most befitting of satire and the huge comic embrace that only Keddy Sutton, Gillian Hardie and Homotopia could wonderfully provide.

As Homotopia celebrates its tenth anniversary, where better to return to than the world of Caz and Britney, The Scottie Road Two, Gregg’s sausage rolls, bingo halls, the coming revolution led by two women armed to the teeth in hair rollers and the greatest homage of them all to the musical Les Miserables. That’s exactly what audiences will find as they find themselves winding up towards The Unity Theatre and the outrageous, the praiseworthily amusing, laugh out loud Mis Les.

These comic creations have flourished and even blossomed since they were last on at the Unity Theatre. Already a pairing in which the smile on your face is stretched to their very limits as you revel in the beautifully silly, Mis Les gives both Ms. Sutton and Ms. Hardie the chance to express their incredible vocal skills, of which despite being a parody of songs from another musical still held the range and the emotion of the audience, the applause from the Unity crowd a glowing spontaneous round of high approval and the smile, the real belly laugh, got that little bit wider and a little bit deeper.

It seems odd that these two exceptional women only really started getting to know each other back in 2008, perhaps a sense of the fortuitous that was seeping out from the Capital of Culture celebrations that Liverpool was experiencing, the way they interact with each other suggests that they should have been doing this type of theatre together so much earlier. What could have been makes the past a slightly poorer place to think of.

With Caz and Britney out on a tag after their last run in with the law, the last thing they need is to be embroiled in yet another conflict and yet from that they still find a way to beat the system, raise a flag to Homotopia and come out all at the same time whilst lovingly skitting Anne Hathaway. Mis Les was delicious and good fun, only Gillian Hardie and Keddy Sutton could ever come up with something as bold, as beautiful and as bone-shaking funny as this. You certainly won’t be miserable in the company of these two proud women.

Ian D. Hall