Reviews of Govan Fair Queen and Zara Gladman's Good For He

Elaine C Smith may sit among Scottish comedy royalty but she’s forever in danger of being upstaged by young screen newcomer Harper Blue Hamilton in the new BBC comedy short Govan Fair Queen.

Harper plays nine-year-old Abigail, reluctantly entered into a beauty pageant in a working-class district of Glasgow by her grandmother Linda in an attempt to win a trip to Florida – but more importantly to settle an old grievance after being ‘robbed’ of the title herself back in 1968.

Comic Paul Black, who wrote and directed the film, says he wanted to celebrate ‘the humour and tenacity of the women I grew up around’ – and indeed there’s not a single man on screen. 

Linda is overbearing but ultimately loving, apparently bringing up Abigail single-handed in a modest living room filled with smoke, tat and religious iconography. Just like the other pushy mothers entering their daughters into the contest – and dressing them up as mini-Mes  – she’s eccentric, but credible.  

Meanwhile, Abigail is almost as sharp-tongued as her grandmother, showing that tenancity Black mentioned will pass down the generations. 

Govan Fair Queen is an affectionate portrayal of the working-class community where it’s set, showing that while the surroundings might be drab, the people are colourful. The humour comes from those personalities, rather than gaggy lines, and is warmly conveyed.

The short is steeped in atmosphere and looks filmic, with shots such  as the wide-angle of the stage for the montage of the girls showing off their special ‘talents’, showing off Black’s talents as a director.

Tonight’s other BBC Scotland comedy short, Good For Her, joins the pile of hit-and-miss sketch shows, however clichéd that phrase has become.

But Zara Gladman, who build up her reputation online, is a clear talent for conveying characters, sometimes quite subtly, and there are some strong ideas here. 

The best have a psychological edge, such as the scene about women undergoing ill-advised ‘drastic over-compensatory life changes’ or the personification of the nagging voice replaying minor embarrassments that stops her getting to sleep. These are behaviours most people will have spotted, or can identify with.

That said, the rat-woman scene comes out of nowhere and is hilarious for being so utterly bonkers, out of kilter with the more traditional tone of the rest of the show.

Aileen, her upper-middle-class character from Glasgow’s West End that proved a hit on the socials, makes a couple of appearances, first doing a formulaic lyric-swap song parody to 50 Cent’s P.I.M.P.  – she’s a ‘mother with a taste for Chablis’ – then doing a delightfully awkward interview with Arab Strap frontman Aidan Moffat, where her bougie hang-ups are nicely exposed.

But the first part of this stops abruptly, with a sound-effect tone where a punchline should be. Endings are not always her strong point, but characterisation is: see her depiction of the worst'come-back-to-mine' date possible… and, yes, he has got a guitar. 

The newsreader who can’t stop speaking in the rhythms of her job is a nice creation – and features a cameo from a game Kirsty Wark – while the vegan cafe is a solid way of doing observational comedy in a sketch format. 

Elsewhere the nice man who turns into a vicious troll of female comedians may be born out of bitter personal experience, but isn’t really made funny, while the women whose incoming text messages don’t match the mood of the music they’re listening to shows off Gladman’s acting chops without having any real gag.

But the first episode of any sketch series is tricky, especially when it comes to establishing tone, and there’s certainly enough here to warrant more. 

• Govan Fair Queen is on BBC Scotland at 9.30pm tonight and is on iPlayer now, followed by Good For Her (iPlayer)

Review date: 14 Jul 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett