Breakfast Plays: A Respectable Widow Takes To Vulgarity

Douglas Maxwell
Traverse Theatre

Breakfast Plays: A Respectable Widow Takes To Vulgarity

It may last a mere 45 minutes and play at 9AM but Douglas Maxwell’s two-hander is probably the funniest play in Edinburgh at the moment.

It opens sadly, as worker Jim, played by Scott Fletcher, pays his respects to his boss's wife Joanna Tope’s newly-widowed Anabelle.

Swiftly, the working class lad and posh widow bond and in no time a strange friendship develops, based on the lady’s love of semantics.

This is where the public health warning comes in. Her linguistic lessons consist almost entirely of profanities but they are as hilarious as Eliza Doolittle’s efforts in Pygmalion.

Just as the comedy threatens to ease, Jim takes Anabelle to a Motherwell match, during which she not only tries out her newly-learned skills but discovers that taboos still exist, much to her own and Jim’s horror.

The two actors play their parts to perfection in an unmissable delight directed by Orla O’Loughlin.

Reviewer: Philip Fisher

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