Review: Aberdeen Student Show's Seagully Blonde, a love letter to the Broch
It's my favourite time of year and that's because the student show is back in town.
If you have never experienced the comedic genius of this annual event, now on its 103rd performance, I could not recommend it more highly.
Every year the most talented of scriptwriters come together to mirror one hit West End show, but with a twist – it's all set within the north-east of Scotland.
This year's tale Seagully Blonde followed very closely the story of Legally Blonde. Think Ellie Woods, but born in the Broch – and whose best friend is a seagull called Boozer.
After her boyfriend, who hails from the biggest fishing family in Fraserburgh, dumps her to go to university in the Granite City, our star, whose full name is Kinkell Woods, heads off on her own adventure, turning in her hairdressing scissors to become the best lawyer the halls of Aberdeen Sheriff Court have ever seen.
It was honestly one of the best things I have seen on stage this year, and that's not just because of the two honorable mentions The Press and Journal received.
The highly intelligent wit of the script not only followed the storylines and scores of a number of popular shows, but also delivered such detailed insights and social commentary on the psyches of north-east residents. They nailed the region's particular sense of humour to a tee.
It hit all the controversial topics ranging from LEZs, bus gates, Aberdeen City Council, Union Terrace Gardens, and of course the famous rivalry between Brochers and Bloo Toonsers.
I won't give too much away because I genuinely want you to all go and enjoy it as much as I do, but just trust me when I say you won't stop smiling the whole way through.
And now on to the talent. I honestly couldn't fault one of the young actors or actresses on stage, however there are some special mentions that are definitely deserved.
Ella Silver, as our lead Kinkell Woods, was everything that character should have been and more.
Amanda Haggart, who played Grunnie Peg, had me in stitches the whole night and her Broch accent was spot on.
Meanwhile Emmah Chibesakunda, who I praised for her role in Lyric's Witches of Eastwick, was a real star in last night's performance, as she took on the role of the gobby gull.
Her comic timing and delivery was truly impeccable.
And we can't forget the boys with Finlay Keir, as Anton Deck, and Conor McGarry, as Professor Calaholmes, both delivering memorable performances.
And if I could pick one stand out moment from the show, it would be the opening of the second act, when six HMP Grampian divas delivered their own version of Chicago's famous Cell Block Tango – a moment of theatre genius.
The show is running until Saturday, and I would challenge anyone to go and not enjoy it. I would argue this is impossible. You can buy tickets, while you can, here.
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Daily Mirror
5 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Fake documents planted on dead body tricked Hitler and won World War 2
The daring plot, in which a homeless man's corpse was planted in the sea to fool Hitler into changing tactics, has gone down in history. But until now no-one knew how important was the role of MI5 secretary Hester Leggatt It's one of the most incredible stories of the Second World War, when a dead body carrying fake documents tricked Hitler and hastened the Allied victory over Nazi Germany. Operation Mincemeat's backstory is now being told in a smash hit West End and Broadway musical. And its British star, Jak Malone, 30, has just won a Tony Award, stage acting's highest accolade, for playing a woman - M15 secretary Hester Leggatt - whose importance in the daring plot has only recently come to light. After collecting his award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor on Sunday, the Liverpudlian star, whose mother was a nurse and father worked in a soap factory, gasped: 'I am hovering above my body experiencing this, watching this happening.' Like most people, Jak didn't know much about Hester when he agreed to the role in 2019, but is now a huge fan, even writing the foreword to a new book I co-authored about her, Finding Hester. In it, he admitted that he agreed to the role because he knew she was just a secretary who didn't play a big part in the plot, so playing her 'would likely give me more opportunity to play additional supporting roles.' But that all changed a few years later when a group of fans of the musical dug up new information, putting Hester at the centre of the daring operation. 'It's an incredible story that I still have trouble believing myself,' Jak said. 'A group of individuals who pull off the unthinkable - a moment in history that truly deserves to shine.' It was in 1943 that the Germans thought they'd got their hands on a briefcase full of British military secrets concerning the impending Allied invasion of Sicily. But it was all a ruse. The documents had been created by MI5 to deliberately mislead Axis forces, and they'd sold the whole thing by planting the briefcase on a corpse they'd dressed up like a British pilot. To make it as believable as possible, they had created a whole life for this man, including giving him a fictional fiancée called Pam. The corpse carried both a photograph of 'Pam' and two love letters from her. The believability of this manufactured life was vital - if the Germans saw through the ruse, dubbed Operation Mincemeat, it would make it clear that the information in the documents was false and give them the advantage they needed in the upcoming battle. Pam's love letters could make or break the invasion plans - they needed to be perfect. Plenty is known about the men behind Operation Mincemeat, but far less information has endured about the women who helped enact it. Jean Leslie, a secretary at MI5, was remembered as being the face of Pam in the photograph included in the briefcase, but the woman who wrote the letters faded into obscurity. In his 2010 book on the operation, Ben Macintyre cites an interview with Leslie towards the end of her life that identifies this second woman as 'Hester Leggett' and, for the next 13 years, that was almost all that was known about her. Leslie also remembered her as a spinster, leading to assumptions that she was an older woman. In the 2021 Operation Mincemeat film based on Ben's book, she's in her 70s. When writing group SpitLip penned the musical, they made her 49. She wasn't 70. She wasn't even 49. Hester was 37 when she wrote the love letters so integral to Operation Mincemeat. In 2023, a group of fans of the West End musical embarked on a mission of their own, unearthing Hester's story from the history books by correcting a misspelling of her surname. Hester Leggett didn't exist, but Hester Leggatt did. They tracked her through archival records, electoral rolls, newspapers and beyond, eventually getting in touch with her nearest living relatives. Hester hadn't spoken much about her war work, so many of them had no idea she'd ever worked for MI5 and had only met her briefly, if at all, towards the end of her life so couldn't supply much further information. One thing they could provide, however, was a box discovered amid paperwork in need of tidying. It was a fairly innocuous box, but it had Hester's name on it. Inside what was once a department store shipping box was a time capsule so perfectly suited to the research in question that it was like Hester had carefully parcelled it up knowing it would one day be needed for this very purpose. Two diaries, including one from the year of Operation Mincemeat, and hundreds of letters were neatly tucked away inside. The research into Hester had set the record straight when it came to her age, but it hadn't been able to entirely disprove the idea of her as the embittered spinster who never knew love. It was certain that she never married or had children, and archival records aren't typically the place to find more private details of someone's life, but this box was a direct insight into her personal life. Hester herself had left irrefutable evidence that she had been the perfect person at MI5 to write love letters to a soldier, because she'd written hundreds of them herself, and this recipient had been real. The object of Hester's affections was Valdemar Bertie Caroe, known to her as Val. Based on the date of their anniversary as noted in Hester's diary, their relationship began on November 25, 1939. She wrote frequently to him when he was posted in Northern Ireland as an army liaison to MI5, and when he was later stationed in France. Her letters reveal her to very much be acting in the role of his wife, concerned with his wellbeing as she wrote 'I do hope you have enough warm things with you. Let me know if I can get anything for you, or if you would like me to knit you another sweater.' In addition to warm clothing she also sends copies of the newspaper for Val to read, and fusses, albeit from a distance, when she knows he's unwell: 'How is your cold, darling my dear - have you really got rid of it? I do wish I could look after you.' Hester also shares frequent gossip with Val, concerning characters they're both familiar with from their work at MI5: 'Max K has recently married a girl called Susie Barnes who was at Oxford, in the Registry, I think, and there is some difference of opinion as to who has made a Big mistake. 'So there you have a nice cross-section of office gossip to take your mind off your troubles.' She had strong opinions about the right way to write love letters - something that would serve her well when writing Pam's as part of Operation Mincemeat - and would chide Val when he wasn't meeting her expectations. 'I don't think that I need explain to you the kind of letters I like to get from you - you used to know how to write them all right,' she wrote. 'You know, quite well, that I never find your letters dull - only rather unsatisfying sometimes. 'It would be rather nice to know if you are missing me + looking forward to seeing me + what you are planning for us. Do I really have to tell you all this?' This was all, finally, evidence to dispel the bitter and unloved myth that still clung to Hester. But her love story, like Pam's, didn't end happily. Val was married to another woman and had been since 1926. According to the 1939 Register, he and his wife were still living together in September 1939, just two months before the day Hester cited as their anniversary. The exact nature of Val and Hester's relationship is unclear. If they were a secret at all, they were an incredibly open one. Hester's diary mentions them going out for meals together with other MI5 employees, and friends so distant that she couldn't remember their names once asked her to pass on their regards to Val. Divorce was possible at the time, but not easy - although Val's wife would have had more than enough evidence to support a petition for divorce on the grounds of adultery if she sought one. Continuing on the way she was, as an unmarried woman in a relationship with a married man, had the potential to end poorly for Hester. And some of the last letters in the box suggest this as the reason their relationship came to an end. She talks rather vaguely, but her words can be read as a desire to formalise their relationship, something it seems she had promised to put off until after the war but could no longer ignore. She wrote: 'It's fairly easy for you to cope with these things, but of course it's quite difficult for me and my dear I think we must try and do something about it as soon as possible. 'Now the war here is over and I have kept my promise to not say anything more about it till then, though it has often been very difficult in many ways […] I can't go on like this much longer, so do write to me as soon as you can and tell me that you are making some plans for us.' Considering the role of the war in delaying any advancements in her relationship with Val, one has to wonder whether one particular line in Pam's letters came from somewhere very personal 'Darling, why did we go & meet in the middle of a war, such a silly thing for anybody to do,' she wrote. Val did not divorce his wife. When he died in 1960, he left everything to her, suggesting they still had some kind of relationship. Although there is no clear proof, it seems like Hester's relationship with Val ended in 1945 after he could not, or would not, be the husband she wanted. Regardless, the collection of Hester's letters reveal her to have spent the war very much in love, even if it was potentially against her better judgement. She was the perfect candidate to write the Pam letters, perhaps using them to imagine that one day she would be writing to her own fiancé. It was a reality she was ultimately denied.
New Statesman
9 hours ago
- New Statesman
My preferred medium for children's education: musical theatre
Illustration by Charlotte Trounce 'Well, around 60 years ago America was at war with a country called Vietnam. And the government didn't have enough soldiers, so they made young men who didn't want to be soldiers go to Vietnam to fight, and sadly lots of them died. And some people didn't support the war, and certainly didn't support men being forced to fight in it if they didn't want to. And the way of showing they didn't support it was for them to grow their hair really long. And that's what the musical is about.' Playing it back in my head, I wonder what my 2010 self, fresh from seeing the West End revival of Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical with its full-frontal nudity and pointed political message, would make of this explanation. But when a curious eight-year-old demands to know what the song 'Let the Sunshine In' is about, how else do you answer? The 'why' stage of childhood is surely the most magical: the years when every new interaction prompts a question, and the answers prompt more questions, forever and ever, to infinity and beyond. Watching my stepdaughters map out the contours of reality can be a humbling experience – maybe I don't fully understand how electricity works, or why we see colours the way we do; I just never realised until I was asked. Mostly, though, it's exhilarating. A conversation on what makes plants alive digresses into a philosophical debate about the nature of consciousness. Explaining what the Budget is and why it matters becomes a bid to define what money actually is. We've done experiments on whether Jaffa Cakes should be classed as biscuits or cakes for tax purposes (including attempting to eat them with a fork), tried to wrap balls in paper to show the limits of 2D map projections and forayed into cryptography to the extent that apology messages in our household are now written in code – or, as my husband will no doubt correct me, ciphers. It's enough to nudge you down a nostalgia spiral. My father can turn anything into an impromptu lesson – grains of rice doubling on chessboard squares to signify infinity, the banking system demonstrated by the analogy of umbrellas, linguistic misunderstandings regarding the Old Norse letter thorn. My sister used to accuse him of 'filling my head with duffness'. I prefer the notion of 'ambient education', knowledge slipped in under the radar before you realise you're learning in the first place. But I don't think my father ever tried to explain the world via the medium of musical theatre. That phenomenon is entirely my own. A West End obsessive, I have the radio tuned to Magic Musicals whenever I can. And when my stepdaughters want to know where the songs I'm humming come from, the history lessons begin. It started with Hamilton, which prompted a quick overview of the American War of Independence and how England really felt about it. Since then, we've done the Paris mob and the barricades courtesy of Les Misérables, the Cold War via first Chess then Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the rise of the Nazis inspired by Cabaret, and the ingenuity of Britain's Second World War efforts as told by Operation Mincemeat. Some have required a bit of hasty contextualising to make them age-appropriate, it's true. But then I remember my mother taking me to Les Mis when I was nine, outlining the plot beforehand and describing the 'Lovely Ladies' as 'women who are paid by men who don't have girlfriends to go out to dinner and the theatre with them so they don't get lonely'. My only concern was who paid for the dinner and theatre tickets – a misunderstanding of prostitution that may have lasted a decade, but in no way spoiled my wonder at the show. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe And so far, my dad's insistence that small children can understand big concepts if you find a way to engage their imaginations has proved accurate. Hair is just the latest duffness chapter. Next up: The Sound of Music, Hairspray and Miss Saigon. [See also: Poetry doesn't only exist on the page] Related
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
First look at Rachel Zegler as Eva Perón in Evita as she sings Don't Cry For Me Argentina on the London Palladium balcony
Rachel Zegler has been seen for the first time as Eva Perón in Evita on Tuesday as she performed Don't Cry For Me Argentina on the London Palladium balcony. The actress, 23, who has been engulfed in controversy since the release of Disney's ' woke ' Snow White, is set to take to the stage this weekend in Jamie Lloyd's new West End production. And giving a first glimpse at her new role, Rachel stepped out on to the balcony wearing a blonde wig, which was styled in a neat waved up-do. The American star looked incredible in a strapless white gown and wore a huge dazzling necklace. Rachel flaunted her amazing voice as she belted out Madonna 's 1996 hit while looking over the balcony as a film crew captured her performance. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Rachel is hoping her fortunes could see a career turn after Snow White like Nicole Scherzinger, who starred in director Jamie's 2023 reimagined version of Sunset Boulevard, which won her plaudits and went to Broadway. The West Side Story star will make her West End debut as Former First Lady of Argentina Eva Peron in the show, which debuted in 1978 and was written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Rachel will take to the stage at London's Palladium from June until September 2025 in the acclaimed musical. Following the announcement earlier this year, Rachel gushed: 'Evita has been such an important musical to me since I was a little girl, when my dad and I would sing Don't Cry for Me Argentina together on my back patio. 'The opportunity to bring Jamie Lloyd's singular, visionary ideas to life onstage is an honour unlike any other. The stage has always felt like home to me, and I can't wait to make my West End debut in such great company.' Meanwhile Jamie said: 'I am so excited to be collaborating with the brilliant Rachel Zegler on Evita. She is a phenomenal talent, and I am delighted she will be making her West End debut as the iconic Eva Perón'. An official announcement for the show read: 'Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber 's legendary Evita returns to the West End, reimagined by the visionary award-winning director Jamie Lloyd'. 'Featuring an iconic score including Don't Cry For Me Argentina, Oh What A Circus, Another Suitcase in Another Hall, and the Oscar-winning You Must Love Me'. Rachel showed off her amazing voice as she belted out Madonna 's 1996 hit while looking over the balcony and a film crew captured her performance from behind 'Fuelled by ambition and passion, Eva Perón rose from poverty to become the most powerful woman in Latin America. A symbol of hope to many Argentines, her star shone brightly as she captured the nation's heart and divided its soul'. Rachel is no stranger to musical theatre and starred in Stephen Spielberg's Oscar winning adaption of West Side Story in 2021. Other famous faces to take on the iconic role Evita include Patti Lupone, Elaine Paige as well as mega Madonna in the 1996 movie version. Rachel made a barbed comment about Broadway as she shared a series of snaps in honour of the Tony Awards 2025 on Sunday. The Snow White star was snubbed for her Broadway debut in the revival of Romeo and Juliet in which she starred with Heartstopper's Kit Connor. The Snow White star was snubbed for her Broadway debut in the revival of Romeo and Juliet in which she starred with Heartstopper's Kit Connor Rachel shared a message for her fellow Broadway stars, adding that a turn on the Great White Way 'is not for the faint of heart'. 'I have the most respect for the people being honoured tonight – doing anything, especially a 2-3 hour marathon such as a Broadway musical or play,' Rachel began. 'It is not for the faint of heart, we are athletes in our own right and tonight is truly a celebration of all the hard work – both on stage and off – that goes on in these iconic spaces.' She added, 'I love my job so d**n much.'
