Primadoona

Doon Mackichan wastes no time in getting to the point in Primadoona: “Hello God, I’d just like to know when all the bad stuff is going to stop happening.” What follows in her one woman show is an account of MacKichan’s journey from winning an Emmy for Smack the Pony to being a divorced mother of three doing voiceovers for increasingly questionable advertisements.

While undoubtedly episodic, Mackichan and Martin Millar have marshalled their source material well. Primadoona leaps backwards and forwards through the last three years with only minimal guidance for those watching. Rather than diminishing the story, however, the frantic pace only intensifies it.

Relying on shorthand (a pair of wellies, a hip flask, a red dress) and Mackichan’s impressive array of voices Primadoona conjures a world deftly and concisely. Never afraid to see the ridiculousness of either her life or her story, Mackichan is hugely endearing whether coping with a stream of Valentine cards from her three year old daughter or a misguided tryst on a dance floor.

At the point when you think you know where the story is going, however, the play wrong-foots us, leading the narrative somewhere altogether darker and more painful. It’s here where Mackichan excels - that she is funny is, by this point, a given. But there’s an understated pathos to her overall performance that allows her words to breathe.