Performed by Carolyn Pickles

Written by Jonathan Fortingall

Directed by Colin Wakefield 

“What the world needs now is the return of me.” So says the inimitable Kiki-Jean McShoogle, as she finally tells her story. After achieving every actor’s dream, a walk-on in The Bill, and “triumphant” turns in the West End and off-off-off-Broadway, she reveals the painful reason she fled the limelight, only to reinvent herself as the glamorous doyenne of Perthshire’s theatrical landladies.

Canny and courageous, tender and a tad outrageous, this extraordinary luminary recalls her “intimate friendships” with the giants of theatre, television and film, including “more Dames than you can shake a stick at… and Olly Murs”. From first-night feuds to royal revelations and her infamous outburst at the Scottish Academy Awards, this is the frankly unbelievable tale of a small-town lassie with big dreams, who became a legend in her own living room.

Mrs. McShoogle, Scotland’s Second Finest Actress, was first performed in a staged directed reading at the Jermyn Street Theatre, London, on 15th June 2022. The role of Mrs. McShoogle was played by Carolyn Pickles and the director was Colin Wakefield.

A special thank you to Penny Horner and her team at the Jermyn Street Theatre for their generous help and support.

A five-part audio series starring Carolyn Pickles is now available on Amazon Music/Audible, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Podbean and more.

The published script of Mrs. McShoogle, Scotland’s Second Finest Actress, is available on Amazon. Author’s profits from the book are donated to The Born Free Foundation; from the audio series, to Animals Asia.

The Mrs. McShoogle illustration is by John Partridge, to whom we are most grateful for permission to reproduce the image.

CAROLYN PICKLES has been acting for over forty years, graduating from the University of Manchester Drama Department and the National Youth Theatre in 1974. She gained her Equity card travelling around pubs and Arts Centres in an unreliable white van with a group of ex-Manchester students and was fortunate to work in Rep. at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse and Manchester Library Theatre before moving to London and working in television and film. Favourite roles, in no particular order, include Theatre:  Fram (Eglantine Jebb) (National Theatre), Pride and Prejudice (Lady Catherine de Burgh) (No. 1 Tour), The Cherry Orchard (Carlotta) (Sheffield Crucible), King Charles III (Camilla Parker Bowles) (Sydney Theatre) and Emilia (Lord Henry Carey) (Globe and Vaudeville Theatre). Film: The Spy Who Dumped Me (Marsha), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Charity Burbage), The Mirror Crack’d (Miss Giles) and Tess (Marion). Television: The Sister Boniface Mysteries (Reverend Mother Adrian), The Canterville Ghost (Mrs. Umney), Broadchurch (Maggie Radcliffe), Landgirls (Mrs. Gulliver), Evil under the Sun (Emily Brewster), May To December (seven series) (Simone), The Bill (CDI Kim Reid) and Bluebell (Bluebell). Carolyn was three times a member of the BBC Repertory Radio Drama Company, recording a great many plays for Radio 4. She also teaches at Pinewood Studios and is currently writing for television.

COLIN WAKEFIELD has directed five one-person shows: A Woman of No Importance and A Lady of Letters for Leda Hodgson; The Diary of a Madman for Terence Beesley; My Dear Howey for Pauline Gray; and The Madness (Tennyson’s Maud) for Kenneth Branagh. He has also produced and directed two of his own plays at the Jermyn Street Theatre: the comedy On Your Honour and the thriller Audience with Murder, both co-written with Roger Leach. As an actor he has worked extensively in repertory, and has toured with Cheek by Jowl (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bottom), Bubble Theatre and Whirligig Theatre. He has appeared in two West End musicals, an actor-musician version of Sweeney Todd (Judge Turpin) and Stepping Out – The Musical (Geoffrey), where he first worked with Carolyn Pickles. Colin has written twenty pantomimes and family musicals with composer Kate Edgar, as well as a thriller, Sleep No More, with David Gillespie. He is currently writing Rhyming History – The Story of England in Verse, published in eighteen volumes by Double Honours Publications, with illustrations by John Partridge.

JONATHAN FORTINGALL completed the script of Mrs. McShoogle during recent lockdowns, and is now writing his next play which will be a more personal piece. For the past twenty-fiveyears he has worked in hospices and animal rescue charities. In an earlier life he worked for the Scottish Tourist Board and wrote the What’s On and Essential Edinburgh Guides, and the Dumfries and Galloway Holiday and Children’s Guides. Mrs. McShoogle is his first play.