​

The action of this comedy-drama takes place over several years and is set entirely in a hairdressing salon in a small fictional town in Louisiana. It revolves around the regular clients, a bunch of diverse local women who gossip and bicker as only long-standing friends can. These are the magnolias of the title – the state flower of Louisiana – who demonstrate their steely resilience in the face of adversity. Far from just a place to get their hair done, the salon is a source of support and friendship, away from their seemingly hopeless men, who either sit on the sofa watching TV all day, go hunting at every opportunity or wind up the neighbours by shooting birds in their back yard. Into the salon comes new girl Annelle, evasive about her background and clearly hiding something; she is taken on as a junior and starts to blossom under the kindly eye of owner Truvy. 

​

You never doubted Sophie Thompson’s Truvy as the welcoming, kindly hairdresser with a heart of gold who was everyone’s friend, and she gave an assured performance. Hayley Blundell as Annelle, with a wonderfully goofy Southern accent, took the character convincingly from a naïve victim to a confident young woman who then turns into a religious zealot.  But the focus of the story is Shelby whom we meet on the morning of her wedding. She (spoiler alert) is diabetic and, against medical and maternal advice, subsequently gets pregnant, has the baby but then dies later following a kidney transplant. Hannah Tomlinson captured the optimism of a young bride plotting out her future life, followed by the underlying desperation of her subsequent decisions. Her over-protective mother, M’Lynn, played by Gill Daly, maintains a veneer of affability and affection, but tensions between the two come to the fore every now and again. Perhaps these moments could have been a little sharper to highlight the underlying struggle of a young woman to assert herself against her loving but controlling mother. But M’Lynn’s second-act monologue, when she can no longer put a brave face on her grief and rails against the unfairness of her daughter’s death, moved many audience members to tears.