Review by Eric Page
Kathy Diamond plays Bet Lynch in this one-woman performance of monologues and music. A celebratory performance raises a glass to the unmistakable female character made famous by British actress Julie Goodyear of the world’s longest running soap opera, Coronation Street.
Diamond – decked out in leopard prints and sterling blonde beehive, classy jewellery and slippers – looks and sounds the part. The show opens as Bet puts the final touches to her look before starting off into a chatty and reflective series of reminisces and songs which allows us insight into the hard life that Bet’s knowingly taken.
She’s self-aware is this Bet, she knows the road less taken but one which has given her agency, has cost her most of things she was brought up to believe were her due. But there’s no regrets here, just acknowledgement of what could have been, a puff on the cigarette, a brushing down of the leopard print, a ‘Come on Chuck’, and a firm step into the future. In the soap she eventually settles in Brighton…
Bet’s iconic fondness for leopard print clothes and beehive hairstyle became the inspiration for Freddie Mercury‘s drag character in the music video for I Want to Break Free.
We get insight into her mother, sighing and exasperated at her teenage pregnancy, an eventual marriage to man who never said he loved her, but stayed and asked for her hand.
We feel the anger directed at men who never quite made the grade – ‘why lie to get owt?’ she asks us, but there’s no wistfulness here, more a dislike of the ways that men have deceived her for the sake of the comfort of her buxom barmaid charms. Charms she’s happy to share for a night or a life anyway. It’s a hard life being a leading lady in a soap, them writers give you no rest.
We feel Bet the woman, tender, whole, emotionally unfulfilled by her lovers, but not by her life. Bet the friend, turning over the disappointment from the other women in her life. There’s Bet the agony aunt, with some funny phone interactions with a younger Racheal.
There’s an honesty in this portrayal, one which shows deep respect to the many many women that Bet is part of, she may have come to represent them, but Julie Goodyear pulled them out of the strong Northern brassy women she knew as a child. There’s nowt pathetic here Loves, keep walking if you’re wanting tragedy, this is Bet triumphant, but it’s a victory that has cost her hard. Barmaid. Icon. Blonde Rocket and Femme Formidable.
It’s written well, appears to be in rhyming couplets which gives it the (very Fringe) feel of a cross between Sylvia Plath and Shakespeare, it’s played for pathos, eliciting compassion, not pity. Diamond has obviously worked hard on this, and it’s a labour of love, if you’re a fan of Bet or Coronation Street this show will have extra layers for you, but you can rock up and learn without any real knowledge of the character or the soap, it’s all mostly tightly focused on Bet, her narratives stand alone.
The set is the bar of the Rovers and Bet’s dressing table, some lovely period details, a squirt of hairspray and a mist of Dior’s Poison is an evocative way of summoning up the ’80s.
Within the carefully cultured Lancashire accent there’s some gems of inflection, of idiom and some very cool lines. – ‘My Best bitter brings all the boys to the yard’.
Diamond has a knack for song parody and weaved through this reflective show, where Bet talks to us as if we’re in her bar, she pauses to pop some music on, then sings along to it, the lyrics of the songs changed to fit. We sing along with the chorus, it feels like we’re in the back room of the Rovers Return. A delicious homage to Betty’s Hotpot is sung, ‘nobody does it Betty’.
The final part has a perfect rendition of Charlene’s classic hit I’ve Never Been to Me brilliantly rewritten as I’ve been to Warrington but I’ve never been to Leeds. We sing along, the faded brass band theme kicks in, the faded brassy blonde fades off in what should be a haze of cigarette smoke, but we imagine that.
A fitting ending indeed, the audience were warm and left pleased with seeing a vintage character brought to such tender life in front of them, full of pithy put downs, charming reminisces and reflections on the life of working class women with nowt but her cleavage (named Newton and Ridley) and wits to get her through a gritty life up North.
Diamond’s show is a full hour of homage, with a heart and some sharpness. It’s pure Fringe, an extra pair of hands would help smooth out some of the production bumps, but hey, it’s the Fringe, that’s part of the fun.
For the rest of the Fringe Programme check out their website
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