If you don't have a baby you're mental

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THE CLOCK ticks are so loud they'd scare a Peter Pan crocodile.

There's a dramatic sense of urgency in the female that she simply has to have a baby.

And she has to have it now, before Nature grasps the body she's known, takes away and returns with an older, different form, at doesn't work in quite the same way.

That's what's happening to Lisa right now. Lisa is forty, and edging towards a midlife crisis. The world, she believes, is judging her childless state.

And in a desperate bid to conform, she lures her brother-in-law, Stan, to a dingy hotel room in the middle of a ring road to carry out a plan.

That's the plot line of this week's Oran Mor play, Ring Road, written by the very talented Anita Vettesse, who seems to understand implicitly the concept of dark comedy.

"It's a great premise," says Angela Darcy, who plays Lisa.

The plays is set in a roadside hotel, a cold, bland, uninviting location which is an ideal metaphor for the meeting which takes place there.

What develops is Lisa has to convince Stan to help her to have a baby.

"Lisa isn't thinking straight. She's lost. She's obsessive and the idea of not being able to have a baby is ruining her life, her marriage."

Why choose Stan? "My theory is she's so desperate to have a baby but she doesn't want to have an affair. And Stan is a nice guy, but doesn't have a huge sense of responsibility so he'll probably be up for it."

Angela, who grew up in Hamilton, isn't quite forty ("Yet") but she is at the point in life where most of her friends are having babies.

"People constantly say to me 'When are you having a baby?' but the thing is actors do tend to have babies later.

"We don't have financial security so we're always putting it off. And we don't maternity leave to fall back on so the idea of pregnancy can in some ways be rather bleak for new mothers.

"If you take a year off, you earn nothing for a year. And it seems terribly unfair."

The reality is a young actress with a baby lands a job, then child care costs will gobble up the earnings faster than hungry baby eating a moist rusk.

"What this means is we have to make choices, unless you have a partner with a very good job.

"But then again, you are always aware if you don't make the choice in time, then you miss the window."

Angela, who has a long-term partner adds; "I've spoken to lots of actresses who've missed the window, and have had to accept it's not going to happen.

"I'm not at that stage yet. And I'm on the fence about the decision. I think I'm lucky because I have lots of nieces and nephews, but at the moment I do enjoy handing them back."

Angela also works as a teacher at the Conservatoire, says the decision about whether to become a mother or not isn't to far off.

"I'll have to decide in the next couple of years," she says, smiling. "I can hear the clock ticking. Not too loudly at the moment, but it's there.

Appearing in Ring Road, directed by Johnny McKnight, has certainly brought the subject to the front of the actresses's mind.

"It has, we've been talking about it during rehearsals," she says of chats with the writer.

"What we've realised is the pressure to have babies is huge. There are women out there who think we are mental because we don't have kids.

"And even doctors will say to you 'Well, if you had a child that would sort that out'. All of this makes it tough for a woman."

She adds, smiling; "Thank God we have men to support us through all this trauma."

Angela Darcy's baby decision has perhaps been informed by her career success. The lady, who is also an accomplished singer, has worked continually in recent years, achieving great success in the likes of Janis Joplin bio-play Full Tilt.

She is also a voice-over artists, who does "lots of trails for STV."

"Thankfully, the gaps aren't as big as they used to be."

*Ring Road, Oran Mor, until Saturday.

"Anita writes plays about real people and they have a warmth," she says. "And she can produce the unexpected with lots of twists and turns.