Excerpt from Becoming Molly

As you find your seat in the middle of the small, dated theatre, music hall tunes – straight out of The Good Ol’ Days – are playing.  On stage, a 10-foot Virgin Mary cut-out, clothed in a long blue and white gown, surveys the scene.  Her blank, featureless face is lit from behind to give it an eerie glow and her arms are outspread in a heartless compassion. 

People are gradually taking their places, but you suspect the show will not be a sell-out.  Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is not to everyone’s taste and the reviews haven’t been great.

The man’s voice comes from behind you.  It’s theatrical – affected and well-spoken. There’s also something faltering about it.  Given the number of empty seats, you sense that it’s directed at you.

‘I suspect Joyce’d turn in his grave if he saw that monstrosity.’ You twist around, glad that someone has decided to address the elephant in the room – only to realise that an even larger one looms behind you.  Because the words come from a male perhaps in his mid-fifties – but a male in full make-up and a figure-hugging red dress, complete with a bobbed brunette wig and sunglasses.