Classic plays have long swapped gender roles and at times the convention hasn’t always been successful, such as with Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. But what of switching when it comes to a play set in the world of football sectarianism?
Des Dillon’s football classic, Singing I’m No’ a Billy, He’s a Tim now features an all-female cast. The comedy takes two football fans from either side of Glasgow's divide - Celtic, Rangers – and puts them together in a police cell on the day of an Old Firm match. And in these days of gender equality, doesn’t it make sense that women can reveal themselves to be every bit as bigoted and hurtful as men?
We come to see the stakes are cranked up further when the jailed fans try their hardest to see the game on a tiny portable television, and in the process release a torrent of invective at each other, not only revealing a hard-core contempt but each other’s version of history.
But that’s not the only plot. The fans who wallow in their inbred hatred are being watched over by prison officer Harriet, and we come to wonder if she has deliberately placed these two together. Harriet (part social worker, part referee in the play) is played by Rachel Ogilvy, the former High Road star who played Tiffany Bowles in the STV series.
Ogilvy loves the character, and believes the time is right to turn Des Dillon’s arch antagonists into women. “I think it’s been a great idea to stage a female version of the play,” she says, smiling.
“When you think of the massive upsurge in women’s football, and the number of women who go along to football matches it really makes sense.” Ogilvy adds; “We tried the show out in the Old Red Lion, and we sold out, so the Fringe made great sense. And now we run on alternate nights with the male version.”
The play represents the dark side of Old Firm tribalism; at one point we hear the words ‘we’re up to our knees in Fenian blood.’ Yet even though all three characters in the play are women, it doesn’t shy away from the entrenched prejudices, the naked aggression and the intrinsic distrust of the Old Firm fans.
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“The play stands alone as a great piece of theatre,” says Ogilvy. “And the audience are hit with stark reality when it says ‘This is what bigotry is. Here is the hate in the lives of these two characters.’ But Des Dillon also manages to produce a strong anti-sectarian message, and a real humanity whereby he forces these two people to drill down and look at each other and ask why they would hate each other.”
The actor adds, smiling; “The writer isn’t saying that by the end of the play these two bigots have totally changed, but you are certainly aware that their minds have been opened up. We get to see the humanity of both of them.”
This play isn’t a quasi-political religious polemic. Yes, it offers an understanding of why the Old Firm hatred developed, but the bottom line is that it’s a laugh-filled comedy about two opposites trapped by circumstances. This play could in fact be set anywhere there is divide and rancour. The central characters could be Israeli-Palestinian, black-white.
Rachel Ogilvy, who worked in London for 20 years before returning to Scotland, says the female characters bring an added layer. “We learn that the women have children, which I feel gives the words a different, heightened resonance. And we also learn that Harriet has a seriously ill grandson in hospital, so in a sense these are women together, and she’s fed-up with all the bigotry and nonsense.”
Cumbernauld-born Ogilvy is all too aware of the need to focus on life’s priorities. She survived breast cancer ten years ago, and one of the reasons for coming back to Scotland was her father’s dementia and ‘the pull of family.’ The actor certainly brings a massive amount of experience to the role.
Ogilvy and her friend Lyn Ferguson lit up Cumbernauld Youth Theatre before going off to RDSAMD together. Rachel Ogilvy has since performed a wide range of roles in theatre, from Lady Macbeth to Laura in the Glass Menagerie. In pre-Covid Fringe she enjoyed major critical acclaim in Andy Paterson’s dark thriller set in Westminster, Sex Offence. Right now, she’s working on a radio play, based loosely around her High Road character Tiffany.
But what she doesn’t bring to the stage this time around is football fan experience. “My husband is into rugby, so that’s what I’ve started to watch,” she says, laughing. “And for this play it means I’ve had to learn a completely new language.
Singin’ I’m No a Billy, He’s a Tim (featuring Colin Little, Scott Kyle and James Miller) and Singin’ I’m No a Billie, She’s a Tim, (also features Jade McDonald and Dionne Frati) the Edinburgh International Conference Centre - 6pm, until August 25. (Check for alternate programming).
Don’t Miss:
Fringe show (If only for its bold title) 44 Sex Acts in One Week, a ‘fruity, apocalyptic romcom,’ written by David Finnigan, which tells the expected boy-meets-girl, girl-hates-boy tale except that girl has sex with boy 44 times and the world collapses. Pleasance Dome (King Dome) until August 26. (Dates alter).
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