Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour play review: a rowdy, sweary look at adolescents escaping to the big city
National Theatre of Scotland’s breathtakingly rude adaptation of Alan Warner's novel The Sopranos is all about finding the sacred in the every day, even if that consists of getting off your face on magic mushroom lager.
Written by Billy Elliot playwright Lee Hall, it follows six Catholic schoolgirls from the rougher parts of Oban who're determined to "get mortal" on a trip to Edinburgh for a choir competition.
On the cusp of womanhood, they're refreshingly unashamed of their burgeoning sexuality and throw themselves headfirst into any situation that pushes the limits of what's expected of them as modern working class teenagers.
The girls play every part, too, a particularly delicious ploy when they're emulating the leering older men who crack on to them in grotty pubs.
Like NTS' Glasgow Girls, this is a lairy musical of sorts, weaving acapella choral pieces from Handel and Bach with ELO and Bob Marley covers. At times, it feels more like a rowdy gig than a play, with little effort put into scene building, which is often shabby and propless.
Our Ladies is furious and flawed, but depicts a fascinating flock of adolescents escaping the mundanity of their lives in the throng of the big city.