Shuggy Boats review – 60th birthday party brings a sexual revelation

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You can imagine a Victorian melodrama in which a respectable wife causes consternation by eloping with a woman. It would have provocative themes about feminism, fulfilment and hypocrisy. The Lord Chamberlain would almost certainly ban it.

Soroosh Lavasani and Benjamin Storey in Shuggy Boats.

Fast forward to Tynemouth, 2021, and the same story has no such clout. On her 60th birthday, Maeve (Phillippa Wilson) is reminded of her first kiss – not with the amiable Jocka (Dave Johns), her husband of nearly 40 years, but with the long lost Helen (Charlie Hardwick, appearing on screen). The memory is the jolt Maeve needs to upturn everything and pursue her true sexual identity.

Except not much upturning goes on. In Jacquie Lawrence’s play, a sidestep from an accomplished career in television, the only friction Maeve causes is with her gay son Ryan (Benjamin Storey), who is miffed at being outplayed in the alternative-lifestyle game. He is quite the reactionary.

Meanwhile, Jocka, preoccupied with a Mastermind bid, is actively supportive of the woman he loves. If striking out on her own is what Maeve needs, he is all for it. The adjustments are less traumatic still for her niece (Natalie Ann Jamieson) and sister (Libby Davison). Lawrence is deliberately playing with expectations: good for a breezy atmosphere, less so for a sense of urgency.

It is the same with the storylines about pregnancy and bereavement. They are soap-opera undulations, not momentous dramatic events, in a play reliant on small-screen techniques: short scenes, phone calls, looks to camera. Lawrence tries to adds weight with references to Pride festivals, the Jarrow march, literacy in prisons and poverty (Maeve works for a providential lending society), none of which have much bearing on the story, even if they show the playwright’s heart is in the right place.

Set in a seaside fish shack where the nearby swing boats recall dalliances of the past, it is strikingly designed by Alison Ashton whose set is constructed from palettes like so much flotsam. But there is a lot of clomping on and off in Fiona MacPherson’s production, presented by Jackdaw Media, in a play that is shy of confrontation and reluctant to explore the characters’ inner lives.