Perfect Days Review

A “Perfect Day” at Pitlochry Festival Theatre On Wednesday 18TH June the Higher Drama class and the Advanced Higher English class took a trip to Pitlochry to see Liz Lochhead’s comedy “Perfect Days”. The play is set in Glasgow in the penthouse flat of a celebrity hairdresser called Barbs. Barbs is thirty-nine and has realised that this is the perfect time for her to have a baby, but the problem is that she is separated from her husband and has to find a father, for this child. Her mother, Sadie, is against the thought of Barbs bringing up a child alone as she had to do it and tries to convince Barbs that it is really difficult. She ignores her mother’s advice and goes ahead with her plan. The theme of the play is about relationships in general and follows Barbs’ relationships with her mother, her oldest friend Alice and her best friend Brendan. We also meet her estranged husband Davie and see the amicable break up between the two. The final relationship that is explored is between Barbs and Grant. He is Alice’s son who was born when she was seventeen and was put up for adoption. He has now, at the age of twenty-six, decided to find his birth parents. The set design which showed Barbs’ apartment was excellent. It had a mezzanine bedroom are and a bedroom and kitchen off stage. The music used in the play was very effective because the lyrics in the songs were carefully chosen to send a message to the audience about each characters relationship with Barbs. After the play we received a post-show talk from the artistic director and the six members of the cast. We could ask questions and they asked us for our opinions on different aspects of the show. As Higher Drama students we found this very helpful, as in the New Higher Drama exam we are expected to do an essay on Performance Analysis. This has been one of the most enjoyable plays we have attended in the last three years of studying drama. The play is still on in Pitlochry until the middle of October and we would recommend it to anyone interested in poignant comedy. Rachel Melrose 5L and Pamela Macintyre 5S