Theatre Interview: Maggie Fox of Lip Service

Maggie and Sue in The Picture of Doreen Grey

Why do you think your latest show, The Picture of Doreen Grey, has resonated with people?
I think it's because it's talking about something that people have noticed but aren't really talking about very much. The fact that  women of a certain age, once they hit fifty, seem to disappear off the telly - where have they gone? Have they stopped being so talented? What's the matter? It was looking at that really. The pressure on women, young women as well, to always look amazing. I've got three daughters and one of them is  very conscious of the fact that she needs to when she goes out, needs to have the full lot on in order to look to a certain standard, but you're thinking, whose standard is it? I think it's quite interesting that the pressures on women seem to start quite early and then don't seem to stop, unless you'e Mary Berry... but even then she look amazing, doesn't she? 

It's an uplifting The Picture of Dorian Grey with the tragedy and showing how people's perceptions of themselves deteriotrate and you can't stay in one place - life continually moves and you move with it. And the world should move and the world should be more accepting of all the different ages and the different ways poeple look. Becasue the amount of trolling that people get just if people are slightly overweight... you think, "Oh for God's sake, just leave people alone." It's quite virulent at the moment. Look at a magzine and you can see people have been photoshopped and you think, "I know they don't look like that," so why are they a) allowing themselves to do that, and b) who are they trying to fool? And who are the magazines trying to fool?

But you know, we've been talking a very serious message but it hasn't really got a message, it's just sort of bringing things to light, picking them up and turning them over and having a look at them. People come out of our show smiling and laughing, having really enjoyed it and humming along to the show-stopping Comfortable Shoes number.

Some of your shows use effects - what will we see in Doreen Grey?
[Doreen] goes to her school reunion and sees her self-portrait hanging on the wall, and then - this happens at the end of the first half - she's walking past the portrait and the eyes literally follow her across the room because it's turned from a still into a film, and so the young Doreen talks on a film. We've filmed it so that there are gaps so that old Doreen can talk to her younger image. So old Doreen on stage talks to the film version.

And then there's a moment with jiggery-pokery where she goes into the pictures, so it looks like she's coming off stage and walk into the film. And young Doreen then walks out of the film onto the stage. It's a very exciting moment backstage, I can tell you, us dodging under a projection screen racing to the next wig! It's one of the split second things that I love - I think it's muscle memory - you know to pick up the wig with your right hand and slip the jacket off with your left hand, while putting on the dress and changing the shoes as you walk. It's a bit of a dance, and then you come onto the stage exactly at the right moment.

What literally masterpiece will you tackle next?
The thing we're going to be doing in Nottingham is a children's show, Snow White. It's at Lakeside and it's a new departure for us, we have never done this before. There's a writer called Mike Kenny... and the directer is Matt Aston from Engine House Productions...those two have worked a lot together and they're really good at children's theatre and we're going to be Snow White. Like a Downton Abbey-type version where we are the servants in the kitchens telling the story of Snow White with the Wicked Queen upstairs ordering in a whole load of apples and we don't know why or what she's going to do with them.

We've had a session with Mike and he's going away to write it and you think "Oh! Oh my goodness, somebody else it going to write it. How amazing." So when it comes back then we'll rehearse and put more of the funnies in to make it silly. We're really looking forward to that - that's happening in March/April. And then we're making a film for the Bronte Parsonage, and then we're working a lot with the Manchester science museum - looking at women scientists.