Shuggy Boats review
Big-hearted, broadly drawn comedy about family, love and late-life coming out
Jacquie Lawrence’s drama, directed by Fiona MacPherson, is a big-hearted story of late-life coming out and the ripples that it sends through a family. When a trivia question at Maeve’s (Phillippa Wilson) 60th birthday party reveals an unexpected story from her teenage years, it’s the catalyst for her accepting the sexuality that she has denied all these years. As Maeve embraces a more authentic life, her family deal with the fallout. Her sweet, trivia-obsessed husband Jocka (Dave Johns) thinks it’s a phase, while her sister Angie (Libby Davison), grieving the husband she lost to Covid, is furious that she would throw her marriage away. Meanwhile, her son, Ryan (Benjamin Storey), already tiring of a life of meaningless hook-ups, feels his own gay identity is somehow threatened by his mother’s.
These interactions, as the family cracks and reshapes itself, provide warmth, as does Maeve’s tentative – although underexplored – romance with reformed ex-criminal Fingers (Alicya Eyo). The cast members, for the most part, handle these dynamics well. Johns brings a tender vulnerability to Jocka, a character who could risk being ridiculous, particularly as he strengthens his relationship with his son and finds himself an unexpected support to his sister-in-law.
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Although her character never feels as nuanced as she could be, Wilson gets some lovely moments, particularly a sweet reunion with her first crush Helen (Charlie Hardwick in a pre-recorded video segment), who is now in London, married to a younger wife with whom she is expecting a child. This is a life that neither she nor Maeve dreamed was possible decades ago as they shared their first kiss on the titular shuggy boat (the North East term for a swing boat fairground ride).
Lawrence, a native Geordie, clearly has an enormous amount of affection for her subject, but while the piece has plenty of laughs, occasionally the humour feels a little dated both in tone and reference, and the characters broadly drawn. Soroosh Lavasani, in particular, gets a nice moment as the one-night stand who might break Ryan’s streak, but is otherwise saddled with several characters whose questionable appeal relies on even more questionable accents.
MacPherson’s direction could be tighter, and some of the pre-recorded segments (alongside Hardwick, there are also videos from Si King and Denise Welch) feel less pivotal to the plot and more a way to shoehorn in local celebrities. Alison Ashton’s stylish set serves the action well, transforming the stage into a seafront shack, and is complemented by Sam Vivash’s lighting. Roma Yagnik’s soundscape is particularly effective, with a gender-swapped version of the folk song Bobby Shafto beautifully deployed as the gently hopeful soundtrack to Maeve and Fingers’ nascent connection.
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