Dirty Dusting

Not my first visit to see the Carlton Players and on this outing I predict it will not be my last. Jack Harris has made a fine job of adapting this wickedly funny play about a group of disenfranchised cleaning ladies on the brink of losing their jobs. But they are feisty girls who have no intention of giving in to corporate cuts and find a way to fight back by starting a phone sex company based in the offices that they are meant to be cleaning. To start they are less than comfortable with the work but they soon get into the “swing” of things and discover that there is life and dignity in what they do at the ages that they are. Dave their boss is a creepy creation, a mummy’s boy and part time pervert who soon falls foul of them as they uncover his seedy proclivities. The cast are excellent, all coping well with playing roles that far exceed their own ages.
Sharan Hunjan as Olive has all the dignity required to play a Guide leader, and the chutzpah to reveal her infidelities too. Bethan Campbell’s Elsie is obsessed with death and dishes the sex banter like an old pro, but beneath that brash surface all she wants is a cuddle. Rebecca Golding is superb as Gladys and her performance embraces the physicality of a woman much older than she is, but also handles the transition of a wife settled into a comfy marriage to a raging sex driven siren no longer happy to settle for her husbands leeks and allotment tales.
The whole takes a little while to get into gear but once there the “ladies” dish the dirt with charm and good humour.
The Carlton Players at The Phoenix Artist Club
1 March
Andrew Kay
4 stars