"The Steamie" - runaway success

Who would have thought that a play based on one evening in a Glasgow steamie - communal washhouse- would be playing to packed theatres 25 years after it was first produced?

Certainly the playwright Tony Roper never envisaged such success especially after he wrote it in ten days for an Ayrshire Borderline theatre who rejected it on the grounds that nothing happened.
And that was the reaction from other companies he sent it to.

Eventually "The Steamie" did get staged and the audience fell I love with it. And have loved it ever since.

Still its sell-out tour of Scotland has taken the company by surprise so much so that they are putting it on for an extra week in Glasgow.

So what's so special about it? Why does it draw a full house everywhere it goes?

Tonight at the Macrobert centre marked the end of their tour and it was easy to spot the attraction: nostalgia, humour, a sense of community, of belonging, and yes a romantic image of a bygone age.

And it is funny, provided you can understand the Glasgow patio (speech).

Half the audience got the jokes and roared with laughter, others (English I suspect) listened in bemusement.

For whatever reason The Steamie touches the Scottish psyche and at a time of economic uncertainty we seek refuge in the past and in humour.