Writer: Hannah Howie
Director: Chris Stuart Wilson
Stepping into the Assembly Roxy in Edinburgh, the tone is immediately set for the audience: to welcome them, a person in a black veil plays a mournful piano tune (later, we learn his name is the Master of the DD, all puns intended).
Soon, Hannah joins the stage with two mysterious figures: her left and right boobs, Frida and Georgia. Each with their own personality, each with their own dimension (pun also intended), and ready to narrate their life story. At the core of it is the symbolic and physical weight that breasts carry throughout a woman’s life. They develop when you are a teenager, eliciting unwanted attention from older men, they grow, change and get old with us, feed our children, and sometimes represent a constant source of fear.
This play operates on layers. On one end Hannah Howie narrates her experience testing positive for the BRCA2 gene, which prompted her to get a double mastectomy. When met with fear, it is incredibly Scottish to just react with humour, and this play is a great example of this: instead of being gripped by the fear of this intense life decision on her own, Howie makes it a humorous and touching spectacle which aims to both inform and entertain.
On another level, she muses on her own family history and the early death of the grandmother she never met, caused by the same genetic mutation. She also considers the importance breasts have in a woman’s life: if having them makes you sexy, what does it mean to lose them? What does it mean if you were born without voluptuous boobs? And are women still reduced to their second sexual characteristics?
The emotional core of this play is clear. There is fear, female rage, all strong complex emotions wrapped up in a humorous musical spectacle. While working on a low budget does come with its downsides, it doesn’t hurt this play. It adds to its humour; it makes you wonder if it would be as strong and witty on a generous budget. The costumes, the lights, and the switch from popular songs (a mocking version of Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy, “Bad Boob”), to homages to Wicked, Cabaret, and the Phantom of the Opera all contribute to making this show funny, biting and thoughtful.
The ending, with a beautiful musical tribute to Howie’s grandmother, hits even more after an hour of her funny banter with playful breasts, doctors, and two cancer patients she meets before her surgery (all hilariously played by Gregor-John Owen and Kirsty Malone).
This play probably carries a bigger weight if you are a woman, and the same fears and anger are not just something that is being narrated to you, but something that you have met in your private life as well. But, regardless of gender, this is a show worth sitting down for.
Runs until 24 May 2026 | Image: Contributed
