Some Marys have ruled nations, entranced the world with song, or transformed science and healthcare. Others have been pimps, pirates and pickpockets.
One of the most famous, Mary Shelley (1797-1851), gave the world much to think about.
Mother of Sci Fi (with her novels Frankenstein and The Last Man), she was also reputed to have lost her virginity atop her mother’s grave and wrapped her dead husband, Percy Byshe Shelley’s, heart in some of his poetry and kept it a drawer.
This summer Lottie Walker (and the rest of the team behind Fringe hit Chopped Liver & Unions) are back in Edinburgh with Bloody Mary(s).
It’s a show which introduces you to an abundance of Marys, Marias, Mariams, and others of the name, who have made their mark on the world.
Then you decide which of them you’d invite to a dinner party.
How about the largely self-taught palaeontologist Mary Anning who spent her time finding fossils on the Jurassic Coast? Or there’s the fashion designer Mary Quant who popularised the miniskirt.
Then there are singers, from Maria Callas to Marie Osmond.
Mary, Queen of Scots or the original Bloody Mary – Queen Mary, the Protestant-burning Tudor monarch of England who ended up with her own cocktail – might well be worth considering.
The deadly disease spreader Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary)? Maybe not!
The to-good-to-be-true (indeed she’s fictional) Mary Poppins?
Lottie said: “Famous, infamous, celebrated and forgotten – an amazing amount of history has been made by Marys and it’s time we honoured their contributions with a dinner party.
“But which ones to invite? I’m just going to tell the audience about them and they can decide. I’d just ask people to be careful and maybe not seat Mary Frith next to Mary Poppins as she’ll nick her handbag.”
Mary Frith (aka Moll Cutpurse) was a 17th-century thief, fence and pimp who dressed in men’s clothes, smoked a pipe, kept parrots and bred mastiffs – hand-cooking the dogs’ meals and providing each with its own bed complete with sheets and blankets.
She and Mary Read, an original Pirate of the Caribbean, would make quite a combination.
Lottie will give the low-down on around 30 Marys, even chucking in a sing-along sea shanty for good measure. And she will invite audience members to suggest Marys of their own.
-Ends-
Creative team
- Performer: Lottie Walker
- Writer: J.J. Leppink
- Director: Jason Price
- Creative consultant: Laura Killeen
- Company: Blue Fire Theatre Company www.bluefiretheatre.co.uk
Listings details
Bloody Mary(s)
7-22 August – Greenside Riddles Court: 322 Lawnmarket, EH1 2PG (Venue 16)
- Willow Studio, 10.30am: 7-8 (previews) full price £12.00 concessions £10, 9-15 full Price £16.00 concessions and family ticket £12.50
- Thistle Theatre 10.20am: 17-22, full Price £16.00 concessions and family ticket £12.50
27-30 August – The Speakeasy at the Royal Scots Club
- Time: 2.30pm.
- Prices: Full Price £16.00 concessions and family ticket £12.50
General
- Duration: 50 mins
- Advisory: Optional audience interaction
- Age: 12+ (guideline)
- Tickets: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/bloody-mary-s-1
About Lottie Walker
Lottie is the founder and Artistic Director of Blue Fire Theatre Company. She is a native Eastender who cut her theatrical teeth in the world of Victorian Music Hall, which she seems to never have left! Her journey to Blue Fire has been long and winding… After an early career in retail management she traded the changing rooms of a well-known department store for a dressing room in Blackpool where she earned her Equity card as the soprano in a Music Hall summer season. An interesting few years of Variety Theatre, Cabaret, Panto and the odd straight play followed, interspersed with occasional TV and modelling jobs. And of course the – obligatory at the time – summer season working at Pontin’s Holiday Camp as a Blue Coat entertainer. During this time she appeared in the original cast of a play that nearly got closed down by local censors in Sussex and spent a few years touring across the UK in the world’s longest running panto, playing both Snow White and the Handsome Prince (not at the same time, although it was often a close call!).
And then she got nodules, couldn’t sing for three years and went to work in the City of London recruiting staff for investment banks and fund managers. But she missed the theatre and eventually decided to return. Being a “lady of a certain age”, with over two decades away from the industry she figured she’d need to make her own work as nobody else was likely to employ her. And so Blue Fire was formed.
Lottie has acquired her old mentor Chris Harris’ plays and is steadily working her way through getting them all back on stage or screen. She has produced all Blue Fire’s shows, appears in three of them and manages all the backstage admin for the company. In Lockdown she set up the company’s podcast, Famous People You’ve Never Heard Of, which she also hosts. And as if she’s not busy enough with all that she also works as an occasional tour guide and takes on ad hoc speaking and acting engagements. Phew!
Social media
- Facebook www.facebook.com/bluefiretheatre Instagram www.instagram.com/bluefire_tc/
Media contact: Matthew Shelley, SFPR, 07786 704299 Matthew@Scottishfestivalspr.org
