‘We’re cosmic scallies, we dance on the off-beat, we’re wonky shopping trollies, we’re forgotten and trod on, we’re gravy-stained and piss-sodden, we’re the breath between coughing fits.’
Shaun and Dent grew up best friends on the same council estate in Skelmersdale. Dent left, full of ambition, but ten years later she’s back. Can Shaun convince her that Skem is an inheritance better than any house?
Jackie’s Hagan’s Cosmic Scallies is a witty and touching play about class, friendship and absence. It premiered at the 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe in a co-production between Graeae Theatre Company and the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, before transferring to the Royal Exchange.
‘Hagan has written a love letter to her home town… an assured debut, slowly revealing the inner lives of its characters’
— Scotsman
‘A darkly comic portrayal of working class life, referencing benefits, drugs, education, class divide and gender… Cosmic Scallies is very funny, but the issues faced by the characters are real, particularly in our current political climate’
— British Theatre Guide
‘For all its beady-eyed honesty, this is a story told with a fierce, exasperated love for the people and the place… lots of very funny one-liners… a hymn to those who are hanging on by their fingertips but refusing to let go’
— Guardian
‘A small town yarn of thwarted ambition, shared history and reconciliation told with a wicked back-street wit… [has] a rough and ready swagger’
— Herald
