Anna Burnside reviews a production of a so-so script that is lifted by solid direction and performances.
Angie and Linda, BFFs through thick and thin, go to the bingo every Friday night. For decades they have judged the other players and split the winnings.
Their daughters, Amy and Stacey, decline to join them. Stacey, an influencer, is too busy with the ring light that illuminates the imperfections she wants to fix with surgery. Amy, drifting and listless since leaving university, dreams of becoming a dog groomer.
Via laborious plot points, a couple of repurposed songs and some well-worn jokes, the young team end up going to the bingo. And winning big.
Will the fake Louis Vuitton handbag stuffed with cash go towards Angie’s mortgage arrears, Amy’s canine beauty parlour or Stacey’s BBL? Writers Marc Pye and Gayle Telfer Stevens struggle to keep the stakes as high as the gag count as the snowflake princess is forced to consider other people for the first time in living memory.
What Members Only does pull off is telling a working-class story without being patronising, couthy or putting self-help book language into characters’ mouths. The cast give it their best. Eimi Quinn’s Amy is droll and deadpan. Sandra McNeeley’s Linda, straight out the scheme, is particularly impressive.
Maureen Carr’s direction lifts a so-so script out of Pavillion Theatre territory. She has funny bones and adds arch touches, cracks in the fourth wall and visual jokes. Who knows what she could do with stronger material.
Members Only performs at Oran Mor’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint until 23 May 2026. It then performs at the Millenium Centre in Stranraer (26 May), Theatre Royal in Dumfries (27-28 May) and Moffat Theatre (29-30 May) as part of Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival 2026.
Photo by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
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