Maggie – a raucous recap of 12 years of debauchery and growing up (The MAC until Sunday 9 February)

This year’s update from the pen of Leesa Harker, simply entitled Maggie, boils down the first four Maggie Muff tales into one narrative. The protagonist is pacing up and down outside the delivery suite waiting for her sparkling daughter Prosecco to make her a granny. She’s facing some big life changes and her mind wanders back to her first meeting with Neville (better known as Mr Red White and Blue) and the shenanigans that ensued. The show is a chance for people who missed the earliest outings, or like me only attended the third one, to get to grips with the full story arc.

The escapades offer erotic escapism peppered with a strong seasoning of feminism, the theatrical equivalent of Mills & Boon. Inspired by the released of the EL James’ novel Fifty Shades of Grey – long before the film adaptations – Maggie Muff (first in book form, then on stage) is aging better and showing stronger signs of continued longevity.

While everything revolves around the life and times of the eponymous Maggie, it’s the wry and brilliantly written observations of best friend Sally-Ann that give it real heart. As the show progresses, Sinead the Greener provides welcome contexts from outside Maggie’s loyalist environs. Before long you’ll have met Freddy Dick-fingers, Igor the Dogger, Sexy Anthony, Greta Grotbags, Craig Diego, Sticky Vicky, Billy Scriven and more. And look out of the leopard skin-decorated bass drum after the interval, one of the few props.

Holding the rapt attention of a gregarious audience for two hours is quite a skill for any actor in a one person show. Granted that many of those attending Maggie are keen lovers of the previous episodes, Caroline Curran has them eating out of her hand, singing along and doing actions unprompted to songs from their long ago clubbing days, but also knowing to hush when the lyrics are tweaked for Maggie’s situation or the story needs to move on. Director Andrea Montgomery keeps the pace up while Harker cements her reputation as being queen of raucous dialogue (with recent Belfast Actually another example of her talent).

Unlike my vivid memory of Maggie’s Feg Run to Benidorm in 2022, the theatre foyer is not full of women wearing Maggie Muff-branded white knickers over the top of their jeans. Perhaps the smalls merch wore out. But the audience has expanded to include groups of men. They snigger and snort – there’s a lot of snorting – at different lines to the women, though a good gag about a penis is sure to have the whole auditorium tittering.

While the eroticism is constant throughout this curated look back, there’s a growing sense that Maggie is learning to value herself and is demanding more respect from the colourful characters she still willingly encounters. Mr Red White and Blue’s slippery understanding of consent is at first ignored (his notion of BDSM veers over the line into sexual assault on top of coercive control) before Maggie learns to challenge and to set better boundaries. We also see friends gather around and look out for each other: personal empowerment complemented by sisterhood. Maggie’s maturation perhaps mirroring society’s sensibilities and growing concern at strongly engrained patterns of gendered violence.

The final scene hints that Maggie is on the threshold of a new stage of life, and loyal fans will be ecstatic at the possibility that she’ll return to a local stage next year.

Maggie continues its run at The MAC until 9 February.

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