The Picture of Doreen Gray 2014
Doreen Gray has it all, her own radio show, a high ratings lifestyle programme Up Sticks and Away on Even More 4, her famously youthful looks which rank her up there in the national treasure list alongside Cliff and Lulu. But how does Doreen stay so young? When Doreen is invited to an old girls school reunion, the headmistress dusts off Doreen’s portrait to reveal a dark secret.
We wrote Doreen because there had been a spate of middle aged women being dropped from the news or from popular TV shows, the most notable being Arlene Phillips on Strictly. So Maggie played Doreen, a fifty something TV chat show host about to be replaced by a younger model. Our friends and long-time collaborators Andrew Franks and Kevin Wrench, who provided the filmed sequences, set about making Maggie look years younger for her picture in the attic. So successful was their makeup job that a receptionist in the building where we were based, not recognising her, asked her out on a date! And indeed she does look very beautiful.
Pictured here with the fabulous Oldham Coliseum community choir, singing, “Nobody loves a fairy when she’s 40”
Doreen Gray promotes a lot of products after her amamzing face lift
Here’s some reaction from the critics
Comedy gold… Lip Service are one of the best writing and performing comedy duos out there and The Picture of Doreen Grey is a superb showcase for their not inconsiderable talents The Public Review
With Doreen Gray, Lip Service give us another top notch dollop of fun and first class theatre. AltBlackpool
The Laurel and Hardy of literary deconstruction The Guardian
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