Written by Mirren Wilson

Directed by Tanya MacDonald

Review by Dominic Corr

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose: Tickets

PALS is a terrific double finger to the lack of Scottish voices, particularly Scottish women, at the Fringe. Or, more specifically, in a way that isn’t a derisive stereotype for comedic purposes. It’s a clean, simple, yet heartfelt premise which will speak to an audience of young Scottish women who, really, don’t often see the same sort of representation as four pals decide that, as they get older, there aren’t many opportunities left to do things before the inevitability of ‘real life’ takes them on different paths. The plan? Hike Ben Lomond. The result? Chaos.  

Principally told through Millie Rodger’s narration/fourth wall breaks with the audience, Sadie is the practical one when hiking: packing the right gear and seeking the openness of hillwalking to escape her struggles with her mother’s illness. While childhood pals Claire (Briony Martha), Taylor (Amy Glass), and Flo (Shelley Middler) all slot themselves into a bit of an overarching stereotype – though ones which do give credence to the word, Claire being the ‘group mum’ armed with everything under the sun, while Flo is the worker whose entire workplace seems to fall apart without her. And she’s not even that well paid.

Appropriately, there’s still a bit of a hill to climb – but Mirren Wilson’s debut work is already well on the way to the summit. There’s the energy and potential for PALS to live on and take more significant steps: to increase the scale and comedy in a larger space, to lean harder into the minor, more fear-inducing or violent moments that heighten the text so well. These are not strictly issues; there are more avenues the show can take in the future to really launch PALS into a widely seen experience.

The writing tries to cover a lot, and the resulting humour can occasionally clash with the slower pacing of the more sobering chats surrounding PCOS and MS – earnest moments, and very fitting within the script, but jolts the pacing occasionally. And if anything accurately reflects the catapulting emotions of the four, the switches from serious to jesting to heartfelt are all in line with how these characters would react – certainly from what we see in their creation and direction.

In their roles, the four are exceptionally gifted with character performance and exaggerations – as equally as the more nuanced moments. Middler’s physical comedy and over-the-top outbursts still stave off melodrama and feel entirely natural – we all know these women. And Martha’s performance, alongside Rodger’s, is the emotional heart of the show – their one-to-one moments are intimate and well-written, an insight into a world many in the audience (the play is a marvellous eye-opener for young Scottish lads) who may never have considered a lot of these things.

Forging links and putting friendship at the heart of the Fringe, PALS makes for a dynamic and hilarious debut for Mirren. One with plenty of life within it and the spirit to carry forward. The switching paces can be initially disarming, but for a one-act piece, it handles many of the bumps with grace and smile – the sort of show we’ve been waiting for.

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