Handbag comedy coming to district

Handbag comedy coming to district

1 June 2016

HILARIOUS hospital based comedy Handbag Positive is heading for a double performance in Down.

On Friday, June 10, the Newcastle Centre will host Donna O’Connor’s new comedy, followed by a performance in Down Arts Centre on Saturday, June 11. 

Some of Northern Ireland’s best known theatre personalities are involved on and off stage in this play, produced by Joe Rae (50 Shades of Red, White and Blue), directed by Alan McKee (History of the Troubles According to my Da) and starring Alexandra Ford (Give My Head Peace) and Christina Nelson (Mistletoe and Crime).

The story follows the lives of two former best friends who are reunited by fate in the local Accident and Emergency Ward. 

The idea of Handbag Positive came to writer Donna O’Connor after she had a late night visit to The Royal Victoria Hospital A & E. 

“To pass the time I people watched,” she explained. “There were all manner of people there, with all manner of ailments, and an overstretched, exhausted and exasperated body of staff who were trying to accommodate the infinite flood of patients with finite resources.”  

But out of this experience came Handbag Positive — the idea of two women who haven’t seen each other in many years and bumping into each again. The show also features the soundtrack of the Bay City Rollers, who were the One Direction of the seventies when the two girls were growing up.

Alexandra Ford and Christina Nelson play Attracta and Nora, who were the best of friends when they were teenagers. They shared everything from their Bay City Roller trousers to boyfriends, and in the dark days of the late 1970s they were for the most part oblivious to how bad things were. 

Typical self-absorbed it’s-all-about-me teenagers, nothing would stand in the way of them getting their teenage kicks — until something stopped them in their tracks.  

They drift apart until fate reunites them in their middle age, and the play catches up with them when their kids have now flown the nest. Just when they were looking forward to ‘me time’, their mothers take sick and it’s back to sleepless nights and endless washing. In a local A&E they find themselves back in their teenage years, exchanging stories and songs as well as insults. 

Tickets for the Friday, June 10, show are available from the Newcastle Centre on (028) 4372 2222 and tickets for both shows are available from the Down Arts Centre on 4461 0747. Shows begin at 8pm with bar facilities open from 7pm.