What a crowd-pleaser. The theatre was packed, and people were laughing themselves silly. Dirty Dusting, by British playwrights Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood, has clearly clicked with local audiences.

Elsie (Maggie King), Olive (Shirley Kelly) and Gladys (Lyn Jordan) are about to be sacked from their cleaning jobs by their nasty, slimy boss Dave (Andrew Munro), and replaced with younger, lower-paid ”environmental hygiene operatives”.

But the septuagenarians fight back, devising a way to use the office they are supposed to be cleaning as the headquarters for a lucrative phone-sex operation. The jokes come thick and fast (sorry, but double-entendres are catching), which is just as well because most of
them are warmed-up old ones, smutty and not terribly clever.

Luckily, the show is saved from complete banality when a very funny sub-plot involving a common household appliance livens things up towards the end.

Parts for older women players are not plentiful and the three actresses have clearly taken to their roles with a glee that is communicated to the audience.

Director Conrad Newport keeps things moving at the cracking pace this kind of comedy requires, Matt Best’s set design has produced a very recognisable modern office, and Maryanne Wright Smyth’s costumes are – well – a bit of a hoot.

So, it’s quick and dirty, with not a lot of substance and not very much dusting either, but there are enough undemanding laughs to brighten up a wintry night.   
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Three cleaning ladies in their 70s, about to be made redundant, decide to compensate themselves by setting up a sex phone line from the office they are meant to be cleaning…This is certainly not a play that demands thoughtful analysis; a lick and a promise should do (which is pretty much the way Gladys cleans the office phones – take your own Wet Ones on Monday).

That the Fortune’s production of this UK hit succeeds in being more than briefly amusing one-liners and unsubtle sexual innuendo, is due to the cheerful expertise of the actors, who make us care about Olive, Elsie, and Gladys, and even the love-to-hate character of their sleazy supervisor, Dave.

Shirley Kelly, in a most welcome return to the Fortune, is delicious as the former strait-laced guide leader Olive, who has a touching sexual secret of her own, while Maggie King breathes hearty life into the more worldly-wise Elsie. As the slightly simple Gladys, Lyn Jordan provides us with one of the comic highlights: her tipsy entry as Madonna, singing ‘Like a Virgin’ in an outrageous cone-bra.

Andrew Munro, gorgeously slimy as their cocky young boss, makes the most of the other bravura moment, when he erupts on stage displaying the hideous consequences of attempting a sexual act with a temperamental vacuum cleaner. Together the four, directed by Conrad Newport, make up a polished and sparkling team.

It is generally a safe comedic ploy to reverse ageist stereotypes, viz all those TV ads where frail grannies kick butt; and the audience of mostly grey-haired ladies certainly relished the sight of cosy geriatrics talking dirty, gaining strength from each other, and finally taking gleeful revenge on their despicable boss.

While hardly breaking new ground – that geriatrics enjoy sex is now almost as much of a cliche as that they are past it – it is nevertheless cheering to see a play unashamedly celebrating the gutsy charm of older women, and providing roles for mature actresses in the process. So I’ll sweep under the carpet some scruples about phone-clients who molest hamsters, and focus on the likeable characters, the assured acting, and the very real pleasure of the audience on a snowy Sunday afternoon.

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