Sonia’s life has always been a bit of a double act, brought up as one half of a Shirley Bassey tribute act. alongside her overbearing mother Gloria, she left a trail of sequins across the working men’s clubs of East Anglia.
Now she’s divorced, battling through the middle-age jungle, wrangling unimpressed teenagers and navigating rocky friendships.
But the unexpected arrival of Sonia’s half-brother Naim from Manchester brings a refreshed sense of belonging and cultural identity, as he introduces her to the Pakistani side she had never known before.
Sonia is excited to immerse herself in the culture and finally begins to piece together the mosaic of her life. But a disturbing discovery threatens to shatter her world all over again.
Can Sonia shake off the past, even with her ever-present mother keeping ‘the show’ on the road from beyond the grave?
Inspired by a real-life, Glitterball is a midlife coming-of-age comedy about motherhood, identity and finding your time to shine.
Glitterball is the first commission to come out of the Rifco Associates Programme, a talent development initiative to improve pathways into the industry for underrepresented voices. Pravesh Kumar, Artistic Director, said “At Rifco, we are committed to telling the stories of underrepresented voices and are thrilled to be bringing you our first mainstage production born out of the Rifco Associates Programme. Yasmin Wilde’s story felt so relevant to us because it sheds much-needed light on the mixed-heritage experience. It is also an empowering example of how a ‘midlife crisis’ can be a positive turning point with a strong intergenerational focus. We hope it will strike a chord with audiences and open up themes that are still too often missing from mainstream entertainment, while also giving them some feel-good, classic Bassey numbers to sing along to.”
