Review: Meme Girls, Oran Mor: When a craving for fame goes wrong

Òran Mór, Glasgow
Fame, as every wannabe pop star knows, costs. In the social media age, where everyone is famous for a lot less than five minutes, you can go viral as the next big thing one minute and be last year's spam within seconds. This is the reality the two young women in Andy McGregor's bite-size new musical are forced to square up to for this latest edition of A Play, a Pie and a Pint's ongoing lunchtime theatre season.
Jade is a serious budding songwriter with an introspective air who pens power ballads in her bedroom, and would prefer to blend into the background before heading off to university. Clare, on the other hand, may have the voice of an angel, but she's the life and soul of any party until she crashes.
When an ill-timed incident is captured on Tik Tok, she becomes a star for all the wrong reasons. Not that this bothers her, mind you, as her craving for the spotlight makes for a lucrative if grotesque way to make the big time. Jade, meanwhile, returns to her keyboard before the pair are thrown together again for one last number.
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McGregor's play is a meticulously observed study of vaulting ambition, and how untutored talent can be warped by a mix of vanity, desperation and the addictive allure of interacting with strangers.
Framed as each girl confesses all for a warts and all documentary on Fraser Lappin's pink boudoir of a set, McGregor's dialogue is delivered with fine tuned interplay by Julia Murray as Jade and Yana Harris as Clare. Both actors spar as beautifully as they duet on McGregor's handful of songs that drive the story.
The technology may be different here, but the play's look at the fickle hand of fame and the disposability of pop bubblegum is as timelessly familiar as its depiction of the power plays between female friends. It is this latter attribute that gives the play its charm in a work where pop doesn't quite eat itself, but it comes pretty close.

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She was called out by internet users after she refused to eat her meal at Tiffins Restaurant at Disney's Animal Kingdom Park after the waiter accidentally misgendered her. She was eating Tiffins Restaurant at Disney's Animal Kingdom Park and the waiter was explaining the first course when he used the male pronoun. Despite the employee instantly apologizing, Lilly explained in her video about the incident that she 'no longer felt safe' at the restaurant. She ultimately decided she didn't want to eat there anymore because she knew she wouldn't 'enjoy' the food with her 'guard up.' The content creator ended up not having to pay for the food or her drink, but the interaction left some viewers disgruntled. In the now-viral video, Lilly was seen sitting at the table as the waiter brought out her first course, the $18 Tiffins Signature Bread Service. But as the waiter was explaining where all the different breads came from, he called Lilly, who was wearing a blue, cropped tank top, white jean shorts, and pink Minnie ears with a bow, 'sir.' 'It's coconut bread from Thailand?' Lilly asked, to which the waiter replied, 'Yes sir.' 'It's ma'am,' Lilly quickly corrected him. 'Ma'am, I'm sorry. My bad sir,' the flustered waiter said. Afterwards, Lilly reflected on the moment to the camera, explaining: 'That totally sucked the joy out of this bread tower.' Controversial: Lilly's interaction with the waiter has since gone viral, gaining million of views on both of her platforms 'It makes me want to immediately leave because I no longer feel safe here. Now my guard has to be up. 'I'm not gonna enjoy this bread as much because my guard is up. We should be able to go places and not have to worry.' The video then cut to Lilly flagging down a waiter, and telling them: 'I don't think I want this bread tower, actually, I'd rather have the check if that's okay. 'I think their training says they're supposed to say "friend" and not used gendered language, it's a pretty big thing that Disney has done,' Lilly told the camera in another clip. 'Nothing was wrong with the bread, I just don't want it anymore. Just because they apologized doesn't mean [I] don't feel sad or offended. 'Have you accidentally ever hurt someone and said, "I'm so sorry, it's an accident?" Do you expect them to be like, "Oh, it was an accident, of course, no problem whatsoever. All of that hurt is now undone." That's not how it works.' It appeared that Lilly didn't have to pay for the uneaten bread or her soda. In one final clip, a staff member at the restaurant was heard apologizing to Lilly once again, before he told her that her drink was 'also on him,' seemingly confirming the bread was free too. 'They meant well but it still hurts,' Lilly captioned the clip. In March 2022, it was announced that Disney World staff members, as well recordings throughout the parks, would no longer include 'gendered greetings' like 'boys and girls' or 'ladies and gentleman.' In December 2022, the same year that Lilly came out, she said that bullies and drug addiction stopped her from realizing her gender for 27 years. It was only when she got clean did she understand her gender identity - after relocating to San Francisco from Atlanta and went to Target to buy a dress and 'put on a wig'. She added: 'It was a bittersweet moment because I thought there's something here, it's the answer to my emptiness and loneliness, I've been living a lie. 'I kept it a secret and I would try on clothes and makeup - it was a cocoon and I was figuring it out on my own.' By December 2020 Lilly was sure of her true identity and knew her name instantly. She said: 'Like many trans people, I'd been playing videogames for years and I would always pick girls and call them Lilly.' She gained a mentor, a trans woman in 2020 called Eve who helped her to discover herself and answer any questions she had. In October 2021, she told her best friends Deborah and Jake on a trip to Atlanta - before coming out to her parents and brother. Lilly started wearing dresses and make-up and was prescribed the hormones spironolactone in May 2021, a male hormone suppressant, progesterone and later oestrogen. She added: 'Taking progesterone helps the boobs and my emotions run hotter. I cry a lot better now.' Lilly worries for trans women who don't have insurance to pay for hormones, and says many are resorting to buying hormones off the black market. She added: 'There is a global shortage of oestrogen and progesterone right now.' Lilly has since undergone FFS - with the influencer revealing her new face on TikTok. In 2023, Lilly revealed she was verbally assaulted at a restaurant in San Francisco while she was dining with her dog at the Cheesecake Factory. In the clip, the woman can be heard describing herself as a TERF - or a trans-exclusionary radical feminist - before threatening Lilly with physical violence.