Holiday Snow is just your average woman from the Valleys, now settled in Rhyl, with dreams of a hot tub and a marshmallow room. She craves a better life than that of a charity shop manager and it looks like she might get it when she discovers a goddess statue on a forgotten shelf in her workplace.
a hilarious phone call with her monotonous, apathetic agent lets us know that big things are in the pipeline for Holiday
Holiday is thrust into the limelight after an appearance on The Antiques Roadshow when her new-found Maltese statue is valued at a sweet half a million. She’s not complaining though, as she’s craved this fame ever since her stint as the Rhyl Warbler made her a short-lived childhood star. What follows is a whirlwind of celebrity - a hilarious phone call with her monotonous, apathetic agent lets us know that big things are in the pipeline for Holiday and she is ready to assume the role of the gobby self-help guide on daytime TV that the agent promises.
However, everything is not as it seems. Behind the scenes Holiday has been caring for her sick mother, who still lives in the family’s run down Bed & Breakfast with its faded and peeling wallpaper - Snow’s real life is the opposite of the glamour of The One Show.
Wendy Albiston embodies Holiday perfectly with a performance reminiscent of Ruth Jones’ Nessa in Gavin and Stacey. She plays a painfully human character, well written by Serena Haywood, holding the audience’s attention throughout (which is no easy feat in a show just over an hour long) bringing a lot of pathos and charm to the role. Albiston showed off a wide range of accents, bringing a range of characters to life - from fairground ride blokes to an auctioneer - transporting us from scene to scene with ease.
For me, the play really struck home when Holiday spoke about fatness and body confidence. The goddess statue, a plus-size female like Holiday, is held in high regard and this is mirrored in Holiday’s life giving her a sense of worth and belief where before she had been told she was too fat, or not good enough by the people around her. It suggests that women, no matter what walk of life they are from, are all goddesses in their own way - an important idea to take away for us all.
