The nobs heading north for Royal Ascot next week will no doubt be wondering who they may find themselves rubbing shoulders with. And here's the answer - four lasses from a fish-processing plant in Hull, gambling, giggling and being sick into their hats.
Royal Ascot's temporary displacement to York was always likely to be a flashpoint - the city council is still struggling to find space to accommodate all the helicopters - and Amanda Whittington's exuberantly up-to-the-minute comedy posits the scenario of a raucous works party turning up ticketless, and nabbing a clutch of grandstand passes from a toff's handbag mislaid in the toilets.
Pearl (Annie Sawle in an inadvisable puce boater) is celebrating early retirement and plotting an assignation with an elusive bookie; Linda (Lucy Beaumont in a modest straw bonnet) is a sweet, shy girl whose six-horse accumulator based on the song titles of Tony Christie could turn out to be a surprise winner; Jan (Sue McCormick sporting a mauve coal scuttle) is keeper of the picnic hamper from Valhalla; while blonde Shelley (Jemma Walker beneath white pillbox with bizarre, bouncing antennae) combines leggy glamour with a robust local accent, expressed in nasal determination to crash the Royal Enclersure for a glimpse of Camilla Parker-Berles. A slightly outnumbered Martin Barrass does a great job playing all the blerkes.
Although the play goes down a storm in front of a predominantly female crowd, it manages to be more than a bunch of cheap laughs at the expense of budget headgear. With recent successes such as Be My Baby and Satin'n'Steel to her credit, Whittington has carved a niche as an intelligent, popular writer with a particular ability to encapsulate the aspirations of unglamorous women who feel they deserve better. And although the concept comes slightly off the rails with an overly sentimental conclusion, Whittington's characters are untouchable when they keep their white stilettos firmly on the ground.
· Until June 25. Box office: 01482 323638.
