Hogmanay

So the patriarch of this family is called Charles Grant and he made his fortune selling computer hardware.

And he's got three kids and he's a, he's, he's a widower, but he's just met a new, much younger woman who has something quite strange about her that is revealed in an early, an early part of the book that, And every New Year, every Hogmanay, the family gather to celebrate New Year's Eve in their massive second home in Applecross.

And into this family, into this world, comes my main character, whose name is Patrick.

And he has recently started dating the youngest daughter of this businessman.

Yeah

... that and the Hogmanay.

It's just like, we just want eg- it's all just positives, innit?

Exactly.

Yes.

It's Hogmanay, it's hootenanny, it's, it's everything there within.

Interesting that hootenanny has made it into that.

I love hootenanny.

Yeah, although when we're talking about something being short, we tend to be talking about a delicate, crumbly, crisp texture.

Oh, and it's also associated with Hogmanay.

Oh, which is, isn't that New Year's Eve?

Yeah, in Scotland.

Like a Busby Berkeley of the Barrows, Tony Roper knows how to make a memorable routine.

This is why his comic masterpiece set in a 1950s wash house on Hogmanay, where four working class women banter the night away, has survived almost 40 years and umpteen productions since it first appeared in 1987. since then it has become a bona fide contemporary classic with bums on seats guaranteed wherever it plays so it goes in this big new touring production led by cast member louise mccarthy's rare tear company in association with neil laidlaw productions and dundee rep with roper back in the director's chair it isn't hard to see why his celebration of women community and the collective power of both retains its rapport with audiences many of whom are likely to be as familiar with the play as the brilliant cast are here one mention of galloway's mince by old mrs culfeathers is enough to signal a frisson of expectancy in the dundee rep stalls where people know exactly what is coming next when it arrives and a sharply portrayed interplay led by leslie mackie as mrs culfeathers and mccarthy as dolly and with ally clellan's magret and eden barry as doreen fit to burst what follows is confirmed as one of the most hysterically funny comedy master classes to grace a stage anywhere over the last half century the first half of the show has already seen the glorious phone sketch in which doreen's aspirations of a house-and-drum chapel a hot bath and a life based on american movies is channeled into a fantasy future call between doreen and dolly the allure of big-screen glamour or a festive sing-song as an escape from tenement life is captured in david anderson's appealingly jaunty musical numbers while as the only male presence on stage paul j corrigan's andy is a figure of easily ridiculed authority for the female quartet's wash-house sorority Beyond the play's music hall patter is an incisive cross-generational study of working class ambition offset by fears of old communities being broken up.

Kenny Miller's set captures the monumental grand eloquence of old Glasgow to accompany a narrative that seems sired from an Oscar Marzoroli photograph of a world about to be bulldozed away.

While on the surface Roper's play is steeped in nostalgia for an age that becomes increasingly distant with every production, he is also historicising the collective memory of a neglected part of society and preserving its legacy.

She is super happy with Jake and is over the moon that she's getting to be an auntie again.

I saw her over the New Year when she stopped off on her way to Edinburgh for Hogmanay, which was great.

My mom stayed with her sister over Christmas and New Year as she needed a break from Mike and Dad, who went to Dad's parents.

Dad is still fully enabling Mike, but Mom has really turned a corner.

Oh.

Don't, don't shout Hogmanay.

They'll just go, "What?" Um-

[laughs]

[laughs]

... a little bit.

I love Hogmanay.

[laughs]