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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Mark Fisher

Shuggy Boats review – 60th birthday party brings a sexual revelation

Phillippa Wilson in Shuggy Boats at Live theatre, Newcastle.
Phillippa Wilson in Shuggy Boats at Live theatre, Newcastle. Photograph: Von Fox Promotions

You can imagine a Victorian melodrama in which a respectable wife causes consternation by eloping with a woman. It would have provocative themes about feminism, fulfilment and hypocrisy. The Lord Chamberlain would almost certainly ban it.

Fast forward to Tynemouth, 2021, and the same story has no such clout. On her 60th birthday, Maeve (Phillippa Wilson) is reminded of her first kiss – not with the amiable Jocka (Dave Johns), her husband of nearly 40 years, but with the long lost Helen (Charlie Hardwick, appearing on screen). The memory is the jolt Maeve needs to upturn everything and pursue her true sexual identity.

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