Supreme cast helps keep Steamie as relevant today as it has ever been

Blethers abound in The Steamie, Tony Roper’s great comedy about four women doing a last-minute wash on Hogmanay in a Glasgow washhouse in the late ’50s.

Blethers they may be but there isn’t a word which doesn’t make sense.

Nor is there a miss-spent line in a two and half hour show which seems to pass in minutes.

And behind the blethers, the stories they tell of life and friendship, support and dreams, say more about humanity than about the humdrum lives the women lead.

This might be the show’s 30th anniversary production, which opened last night at the Adam Smith in Kirkcaldy and is touring Scotland, with a visit to Dundee Rep from September 19-24, but it is still as poignant and heartfelt as it ever was.

Even better, the four actresses at the heart of the show ensure that it still feels fresh and vibrant, no matter that you have seen it a dozen times.

Tony Roper’s own direction still manages to find new bits of business and inventive ways of delivering the same hilarious lines and monologues.

Carmen Pieraccini shines as Magrit, the tough-as-nails wife of an alcoholic who knows exactly what she has become, while Fiona Wood is all brighteyed innocence as she dreams of a life away from the tenements and drudgery, thanks to modern appliances and a sparkly new council house in Drumchapel.

The comedy is driven by Libby McArthur as the kindhearted Dolly. It is easy to laugh at her glaikit ways but McArthur delivers it all with such a straight face that you have to end up laughing with her.

Always there, hard at work in the corner, is Mary McCusker in that wonderful, iconic role of Mrs Culfeathers.

She is still taking in washing, long past retirement and her presence reminds you just how lucky we are in modern times.

This is a play and production packed with laughs and laughter but it is that reminder which ensures that it still remains relevant.

Blethers they may be but there isn’t a word which doesn’t make sense