Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Mickey Finn, Clare Bowles, Charlie Griffiths, Lynne Fitzgerald.
As with many old, but undeniably great, habits and ways, the great British local pub, the bastion of native ways and hopes and drama, has for many years been on the road to serious decline. Cheap alternatives driven by greed and solitude have become the normal pursuit in some respects that the social constraints in which bound a community, a section of the communal population together has been driven headlong into a nearby abyss of soulless apathy.
The characters of our lives in days gone past in which has a story to tell, the old man in the corner with the stories of long gone wars, the loveable drunk who could still beat you at a game of darts if the desire ever visited him again and who knew more about your life than she would ever admit, the mixed group of rag tag, comfortable and socially equal people in the eyes of a pint of Guinness and glass of lemonade, are seemingly and irrevocably falling by the wayside as real life drama and social grace are replaced by the television in the corner and simmering, harbouring of resentment of an indoor prison take hold.
Thankfully some places still exist, the banter between pub owner and their staff catching the ear of the crib team laying down a 29 hand, the excited chatter of a group of people out to be seen locally rather than just going out to be the first one to get drunk and the solitude of a person in the corner nursing a beer and a packet of Pork Scratchings revelling in the idea of company, no matter how fleeting, are captured by Lynne Fitzgerald’s latest comedy Hey Girl, Show Us Your Tips.
A hen pecked pub owner, his social niceties bereft wife, two of the least likely candidates for barmaid of the year, a wedding in which the groom is more likely to appear on Jeremy Kyle than in the pubs quiz team and a funeral in which ashes to ashes may the closing statement in the church grounds but is equally at home with the cigarette box and ashtrays littered throughout the function room; everything in which you could hope for in a diverse and wonderful life.
The audience inside The St. Helens Theatre Royal were treated to a slice of life that many might not have seen for a while, and for some who inhabit glossy wine bars and clubs in which music is seemingly played on repeat and at the volume in which workers inside Heathrow airport might consider to be a tad on the loud side, the community is one in which has disappeared but in which still thankfully resides in the heart of many a well written word.
Hey Girl, Show Us Your Tips certainly profited from the inclusion of both Charlie Griffiths as trainee glass collector Jennifer, Mickey Finn’s excellent portrayal of a man at the end of his tether with his lot in life, his dozy and pilfering barmaids and Lynne Fitzgerald’s own sublime old woman act in which she sparked off greatly with Mickey Finn. A good play in which will remind audiences that the local truly was the place in which to rest your woes and be part of something bigger without the insanity that appears in some ways in other establishments, what can be better that local insanity anyway?
Ian D. Hall