Imagine spending a career wanting to play the lead in Annie, to eventually realise you are only good for Miss Hannigan. That is the fate of Sian Silver. Played with verve by Liz Ewing, sporting more sequins than is medically safe, she is a 75-year-old singer whose seasons in the fictional town of Sunthorpe On Sea are coming to an end.
In this bijou lunchtime musical written by actor turned playwright Hannah Jarrett-Scott and actor turned composer Brian James O’Sullivan, she gives us a taste of her routine: bouncy music-hall numbers, delivered with a cheery smile and brassy confidence.
On a miserly £250 a week, and with a stage door Johnny still turning up for her autograph, it is a wonder she has made it this far. Her last show was called Sinatra: Comin’ Atcha. It is not that she is bad, just hopelessly out of time.
She is reminded as much by an apparition: the ghost of her younger self, played with sparkle by Julia Murray, who also doubles as Sian’s male visitors in Lesley Hart’s good-hearted production. Like a kid from Fame in silver leotard, leg warmers and flowing red curls, she has none of the regret and resentment of her older self, only positive energy. When she delivers a music-theatre style number such as I Miss My Baby When He Goes Away, she sings it like she means it.
By contrast, the older Sian putting on a bright red dress to sing Tomorrow, the big hit from Annie, is creepily disturbing.
For all the sweet-and-sour banter, however, the backstage misery of a faded starlet is overly familiar territory. It is hard to sympathise with an entertainer whose delusions of stardom have left her so bitter. Has it really taken her this long to see the emptiness behind the glitz? The encounter with her younger self changes little, making the play’s purpose unclear.
At Òran Mór, Glasgow, until 11 October. At Traverse theatre, Edinburgh, 14–18 October.
