Interview: Fraser Boyle and Ali Clelland on HEN NIGHT HORROR's Return to The Stage

BWW Scotland editor Natalie O'Donoghue catches up with Fraser Boyle and Ali Clelland- the writing team behind smash-hit Scottish musical Hen Night Horror which returns for a tour this Halloween.

Tell us a bit about Hen Night Horror.

Fraser: It’s a non-stop, thrilling piece of theatre where our aim was to uplift people. 

Ali: It’s farcical nonsense that is hopefully going to get people laughing and singing and just forgetting about outside noise. 

Fraser: I think our biggest influences were Noises Off, Halloween and panto. Those were our three biggest influences.

How did you two come to be working together? 

Fraser: We met doing panto in Kilmarnock in 2018. We hit it off instantly; I feel like I’ve known her for 20 years. 

Ali: In a good way and a bad way.

How did Hen Night Horror come about?

Ali: Over panto, I had been speaking to Fraser about how I had been doing composing and songwriting, and he had an idea for a show and said maybe we could liaise and see if we could come up with something. Then COVID hit, and we had nothing else to do, so we were in the house messaging each other like “why don’t you try this”. I think I had also just started looking at software and how to do all of that rather than just on a guitar, so I was sending all this stuff over to Fraser and going “this is stupid but what do you make of this”. So it just ended up becoming kind of like a postal service creative link over COVID.

Fraser: It evolved so much. It wasn’t a full two years but sort of the two years COVID was striking. It just became something completely different and I think we were quite lucky in some ways.

How was it received when it first opened in 2024?

Ali: Well, we thought it was funny but that it might not be funny for other people and its very much on the brink. After that opening night, people were raving about it and it was more that they’d never seen anything like it. It’s absolutely unhinged and completely off the wall. Karen Dunbar’s quote about it is something like “Bridesmaids meets Scream in a blender with hot sauce and Irn Bru”. 

Fraser: You’re so close to something, and you get the fear that its just us that find it funny but to hear the audience reactions, we’re just like, phew!

Why is it so important to have new Scottish work?

Fraser: That’s one of the things Ali and I spoke about, writing something for strong female characters. You get these kind of male stories and movies where men are behaving badly and we just wanted to do one where women can do that.

Ali: I also think because it's all original. Sometimes jukebox musicals suppress creativity because you’re just taking someone else's ideas and putting them all into something. There’s so many creative Scottish people and it doesn’t get seen or it doesn’t get noticed that much. I mean, you’ve got the likes of Bethany Tennick, who is SO creative. New Scottish theatre and new Scottish musicals are so important because otherwise we’re just regurgitating the same stuff and we’re not getting the talent in Scotland seen. Probably because they’re cutting all the funding. 

Is Hen Night Horror funded?

Fraser: No, this show is completely commercial. It’s being supported by the production company Five Brick May with Imagine Theatre so they’ve been a big financial backer for this. I think Ali and I were both a little bit hesitant to apply for funding because of the type of show it was. Imagine putting that in a funding application- we’d be wasting our time! It’s not meant to change the world it’s meant to make people laugh.I think sometimes funding applications are looking for something moral or political and this isn’t.

How do you think it's going to be received south of the border?

Fraser: We’re hoping very well. It’s going to St Helens between Liverpool and Manchester and I think there’s an affinity with these northern cities. We would love one day to take it down, maybe a sort of Anglicised version or an Essex girls version. But maybe it doesn’t need it, maybe the Scottish girls might be what they’re looking for!

What does the new cast bring to it?

Ali: All three of them (Jennifer Neil, Dani Heron and Hannah Howie) are powerhouse performers in different ways: comedy, vocals, energy. It’s so important that the three girls have a really strong friendship, and through the last tour the three girls didn’t really know each other very well and they managed to create this bond between them and we really saw that onstage. I think its so exciting to get to do it with these three because they don’t know each other all that well and they’re coming from different walks of life as well so its nice to bring that together. But they are so talented. And so unhinged, they are absolutely off the wall. At the promo photoshoot, I was dying laughing, my stomach was so sore. 

Fraser: It’s a very slightly younger cast, so we’ve had a minor remix of some of the lines as well as it leans more into late 30s rather than early 40s. 

Who would you recommend comes to see it?

Ali: Everyone over eighteen. I don’t think there’s a specific bracket for it because we saw people of all different walks of life there. Different age generations, guys, gays, hen parties. Every single person should come and see it.

Fraser: That’s what surprised me, we thought our target demographic when we started writing it was women and a party night atmosphere. But all the guys that came to see it, all of them said the nicest things and we’ve got anecdotal evidence as well as people posting on Facebook that they came twice because they enjoyed it so much. Guys who are saying to me “we don’t usually go to the theatre but we went twice!”. 

The thing that we both wanted to do was bring joy and laughter and we’ve definitely achieved it.

What else are you two up to this year?

Ali: I’m away to The Steamie for the majority of the year, which is mental! That’s alongside Hen Night Horror at the same time and then panto at the end of the year, I’ll be in Kilmarnock so from the third of November onwards I’ve got no social life.

Fraser: I am currently writing Ayr Gaiety panto and it’s an original story this year so its actually taking me a wee bit longer. I’ve got draft three waiting for me after this interview! Ali and I have constantly been scheming in the background; we’ve got three ideas just now which we really want to get started on in the New Year. And I’m writing something else myself just now called Mrs Divine’s Acceptance Speech, which I’ve been writing for a long time and its about my Mormon upbringing. So it’s completely different! 

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