From ON TOUR, 2007

For Acts of Clothing 7-Up, NRLA Glasgow, 2007

Marcia Farquhar [has] a hectic, colourful past that she lines up for us in the guise of a clothes-rail dangling with talismanic frocks of varied vintage. As she zips through them, Farquhar sustains a giddy commentary on the ‘why, when, where and who else was there’ of each outfit. It’s a comedic tour de force, fuelled by (seemingly uncensored) personal anecdote and by Farquhar’s apparently artless penchant for spilling the beans on her own life. It builds into a perceptive essay on the way we harbour memories – holding on to them, physically, through souvenirs – and how our clothes condition how we ‘perform’ in our daily lives. The young lads beside me were helpless with laughter and totally smitten by the succulent, slightly racy and unstinting Farquhar – yet they instinctively hushed when, along the way, the vignettes turned bitter-sweet and the layers, like the frocks, fell away to reveal glimpses of aching vulnerability.

Mary Brennan