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HOT PANTS &
FANCY FLARES
March 1998
Cumbernauld
News 18 March 1998 – “Glitter, glam and seventies style in Youth show"
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Cumbernauld Youth
Theatre takes a trip back in time to the days of glitter, glam rock and the
three-day week in their latest show.
“Hot Pants and Fancy
Flares”, performed at Cumbernauld Theatre next week, is a brand new
musical play set in 1970s Glasgow.
Devised by the group –
aged 12 to 21 – and written by Evelyn Wallace, head of the Theatre’s
community drama department, the show is set in Baxter’s Box Factory, where
redundancies are looming.
Ethel the tea lady looks
likely to get her jotters when a new machine is introduced. Twoby, Elvis,
Maureen, and the girls know that something will have to be done…
With live music from top
local band Big Ted’s Party, the stage is set for a hilarious tale of
industrial unrest, double dealing and love on the factory floor, compete
with seventies hits like “Jean Genie”, “Tiger Feet”, “Saturday
Night’s All Right For Fighting” and many more.
“Hot Pants and Fancy
Flares” features nearly 90 members of both the junior and senior Youth
Theatre groups, with choreography and direction by Evelyn Wallace.
Said Evelyn: “The kids
have been more enthusiastic about this than just about anything else we’ve
done.
“They’ve come up with
so many ideas for character and stories – if I was to use all of them we
would have a five hour play!”
The play’s seventies
setting was chosen by the young performers themselves, while the plot
evolved from improvisation and discussions about the era.
“There are serious issues
in it, but it’s all very light hearted and fun.” said Evelyn. “One of
the great things about doing all this now is that a lot of seventies things
are back. A lot of the girls are already wearing seventies-style clothes”
And there are plenty of mums and dads around to make sure the period detail is right. Said Evelyn “I’ve been teaching the younger groups how to do The Bump and the Tiger Feet dance – and they come back in and say ‘My mum already know that on’ or ‘my mum does it this way…’.”
Let Cumbernauld Youth
Theatre take you back to the three-day week in their latest show.
The young performers
present the musical play “Hot Pants and Fancy Flares” at Cumbernauld
Theatre from tomorrow (Thursday) to Saturday, March 28.
Set in Glasgow in the
1970s, “Hot Pants and Fancy Flares” has been devised by the group and
written by Evelyn Wallace, Cumbernauld Theatre’s community drama worker.
Redundancies are on the
horizon for the workers at Baxter’s Box Factory and Ethel the tea lady
looks like getting her jotter first, through the introduction of new
technology.
Twoby, Elvis, Maureen,
Laurie and the girls know that something will have to be done…
Popular local band Big
Ted’s Party recreate the sounds of the seventies live on stage as this
hilarious tale of industrial unrest, double dealing and love on the factory
floor unfolds with songs including “Jean Genie”, “Tiger Feet”,
“Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting” and many more.
The cast includes member of
both junior and senior groups of the Youth Theatre with choreography and
direction by Evelyn Wallace.
Tickets for the show, which begins at 7.45 p.m. each night, cost £5 of £2.50 for concessions.
If Gregory is
genuinely back in town looking for another girl, he would be well advised to
ignore the football pitches of Cumbernauld Youth Theatre where the array of
talent is truly fantastic.
Certainly in last week’s
show “Hot Pants and Fancy Flares” the emphasis was on the fairer sex
both in the drama company and in the dance troupes who provided exuberant
buzz to the production.
Evelyn Wallace’s
productions with the Youth Theatre are going from strength to strength –
and the sell out crowds which fill Cumbernauld Theatre over three nights
certainly seem to appreciate what a rare talent she is.
Set in Baxter’s
Packaging, the story is a simple one: the wicked management’s attempts to
reduce the workforce, beginning with the tea lady Ethel, is opposed and
finally beaten off. In the meantime, various love affairs develop, leading
to happy and successful conclusions.
The show was interspersed
with major dance sequences, with 70s hits played live by the inimitable Big
Ted’s Party.
The cast was led by some
very strong performances from the girls (most obviously Leanne McKinnon,
Corin Mackenzie, Stella Ferguson and their buddies, with Louise Dunn as
exotic Nadia and Christina Pattoni as Ethel) and the fellas (Scott Ironside,
Crain McLean, Scott Gillan, Ross Finbow, Keith Johnston and the two
‘dafties’ Mark McKinley and Daniel Cumming).
It’s unfair to pick out
anyone in such a big cast but the leaders did lead and even the small parts
cried out to be developed.
This reviewer can only look forward, keenly, to the next Youth Theatre production. Toll on the next time!