So you thought morris-dancing meant white hankies, ankle-bells and beerguts? Think again: women's morris (or "fluffy" morris as it is sometimes derided) has more in common with hi-energy US cheerleading routines. Or, as Helen Blakeman's play makes clear, it's a piss-up with pom-poms.
Blakeman introduces us to a gaggle of morris enthusiasts from Our Lady All Angels troupe, a motley band of various ages and sizes, who seem to have little in common except that their maroon satin costumes do few favours for any of them.
The troupe has made the trip from Liverpool to Prestatyn to defend their title as north western champions, with Wigan Pierettes to keep them on their toes and Speke Jaguars breathing down their necks. Camped in a corner of a muddy field, they spend the afternoon drinking, dissing the competition and filling out funding applications for morris-dancing as a sport.
Blakeman's play functions like a female Full Monty, and has a lot of perceptive points to make about friendship, motherhood and peculiar pastimes as a means of asserting one's self-worth. But it would have been nice to see a little more morris-dancing. Though the Full Monty had barely three minutes of stripping in it, that's still two-and-a-half minutes more than the amount of actual pom-pom action you get in this play.
With only a uniformly excellent (if atrociously uniformed) cast of five to play with, you have to take it on trust that the rest of the troupe are offstage getting bladdered somewhere. Still, a thoroughly satisfied audience hooted with delight at every mention of a kick-out step or turnabout, which may be attributable to the rough perspicacity of Blakeman's dialogue; though you could equally point to the large pink bus marked "Ormskirk Women's Morris" parked outside.
· Until May 28. Box office: 0151-709 4776.
