The Girls of Slender Means

Stellar Quines is one of only a handful of professional Scottish companies on the Fringe this year, and if The Girls of Slender Means were a good representative of the quality theatre produced here all year round it would be cheering to see near-capacity crowds packing the Assembly Music Hall to see it.

However, it is dispiriting to report that this is not such a production. The first thing to emphasise is that the set is a disaster, with multiple scenes invisible to large sections of the audience. Basic sight-line testing should have eliminated this problem within the first few days of the Fringe at the very latest.

Sadly, that’s by no means the only problem. Those who haven’t read the novel will struggle to grasp what’s going on and why, while those who have will be dismayed to discover that Muriel Spark’s sly humour all but absent in Judith Adams’s adaptation.

Early scenes capture the bustle and rituals of the May of Teck Club, the Kensington hostel that in 1945 is home to the females of the title. Candida Benson is perfectly poised and primped as the club’s glamourpuss Selina; Melody Grove is reserved and unknowable as the poetry-loving Joanna, and Teresa Churcher is the odd one out as the calorie-counting Jane.

It’s difficult to find fault with any of the performances, aside from a few garbled lines, but director Muriel Romanes fails to pull the scenes together into a coherent whole.

When it can be seen properly, the show looks very handsome. All the usual hallmarks of a quality production appear to be present and correct – moments of clever stagecraft here and there, beautiful costumes, a strong lighting design – but there is nothing at all to captivate or inspire. It boasts a huge cast of a dozen, many of whom have precious little to do, and this only adds to the sense of wasted opportunity.