That show for me was ‘Our Ladies of Pertpetual Succour which opens tonight 15th May at The Duke of Yorks in St. Martin’s Lane. If any of you have seen it, I guess you will be asking yourself,  flippin ‘eck what kind of upbringing did she have??

Well I lived not too far from Oban as the crow flies on the West Coast of Scotland. In fact I went to school on the Isle of Bute.

My mentor at the time was a certain Mrs. Smith, who besides being a psychic was also a wise observer of island culture. I would often go to her house for a cup of tea and she would talk about what my future held in store and scold me about something or other (I was a teenager at the time) This day she looked at me straight in the eye and informed me that the only virgin left on the island was the  'Angel War Memorial’ on the seafront beside the pier. She wasn’t wrong.

The similarities in my life to this show were scarily familiar. I obviously can’t go into details on the ‘grounds that it may incriminate me,’ but lets just say this, for our school outing aged sixteen we went off the island to ‘ Spain’ to the Costa Brava for ten days!

Were they crazy? I have blurry memories of Miss Montgomery (the girl’s form teacher) sitting on the edge of my bed one morning forcing me to drink a small brandy to take the edge off a mind numbing hangover that left me incapable of moving. But yikes... that was tame compared to some of our other ‘adventures’ on that trip.

You can’t imagine how peeved our boys were as we girls fraternised with the exotic local talent in the clubs, and we forgot all about them. (Are you serious of course we went to clubs, only the teachers went to bed early) ...and how our lads managed to settle a few scores in a grudge football match with the Spanish guys. The injuries weren’t too bad... at least not on our side.

But sorry I digress... because when I saw this show; all of those memories came flooding back and I laughed until I ached.

This Scottish all female, ‘in your face' cast is absolutely brilliant. They are completely in the moment and they give it everything. The show is not for the faint hearted though and if you have led a very sheltered life you could find some of the concepts, challenging.

Did we swear as much, don’t think so (well not as expertly) but we did share that same sense of desperation about being cooped up in a repressed environment and then being ‘let out’ and feeling that wonderful explosion of delight as we discovered.....total freedom.

Just go to see this show, you’ll love it!