On the face of things, the two gorgeous women in Che Walker’s sharp, sassy musical Been So Long, playing at the Traverse after a successful run in London, look far more like a standard male fantasy made flesh.
Tall, beautiful, glamorous and black, Simone and Yvonne – heroine and sidekick – give it hell with the high heels and short, short skirts; but exactly like the women in Elaine Murphy’s play, they are out to get what they want, rather than what some man – or some media-driven sexual culture – tells them they should like.
Set in the closing days of a once-popular London bar with a fabulous soul-music tradition, Been So Long is an upfront popular comedy about love, sex and romance on the mean streets of London, backed by a rich strand of live music from a four-piece band and three fabulous Motown-style backing singers. But in the end, it’s the style and soul of Cat Simmons’s Simone and Naana Agyei-Ampadu’s Yvonne that I will remember, as they try to navigate their way among the sharks and seducers on the streets towards something like dignity, and true love.
Until 30 August; today 3:45pm.
