Brian Beacom

THE Dolls are taking over the world. Or at least the world that is Scottish theatre.

This relatively unknown comedy double act, (unknown certainly to mainstream audiences) has been selling tickets faster than your granny grabbed washing off the line at the first spit of rain.

As soon as their 13-date tour was announced, Motherwell sold out in an astonishing seven minutes, Falkirk in eight. The King’s Theatre in Glasgow took 52 minutes but that is, after all, an 1800-seater auditorium.

Since then, extra dates and venues have been added, such as the 3000-seater Edinburgh Playhouse, Europe’s largest theatre.

Who is behind this phenomenon? How did The Dolls’ characters – Glasgow cleaners Agnes and Sadie who are always on the hunt for men, drink and men (they like men) – develop into the most popular stage double act since Francie and Josie?

What is there about The Dolls that attracts 30,000 followers on Facebook and pulled in an incredible three million YouTube hits?

The Dolls are Gayle Telfer-Stevens and Louise McCarthy.

In their other professional lives, Telfer-Stevens, from Renton in Dunbartonshire, stars in BBC soap River City while Maryhill-born McCarthy is a NTS luminary, starring in John Byrne’s comedy Cuttin’ A Rug.

The ladies are at the top of their game but go back five years and they had both fallen into a career sink hole. And it’s from that chasm The Dolls emerged.

“We both had gone to musical theatre school in Glasgow and London and landed the big West End jobs,” says 36 year-old Gayle.

“I was in The Jerry Springer Show and Louise in Mamma Mia!, but then it all went t*** up for me.”

The actress grins and adds: “I was so desperate I applied for teacher training at Aberdeen, the only people that would take me.

“I just wanted to be a normal person, pay my bills and get a house and a motor. And I went up there, sat in a lecture theatre and thought ‘Naw, this isn’t for me.”

Louise takes up the story. “I was soul destroyed after Mamma Mia! I was ready to give up the business.

“I remember going up for a job in the Met as a policewummin. I actually went up to the building, walked in to the foyer and thought ‘Bugger this’ and walked out. But I was lost.”

Louise returned to Scotland, auditioning for work which led to the Tron gig where they met. The pair instantly fell in love with each other’s singing talent. But there was more of a connection.

“I realised we were both the same, both working class,” says Gayle.

“We were artistes, yet wanted nothing to do with all that [posh voice] luvvy-darling stuff that gives me the pure boak.”

Louise, 29, admits she too suffers from the pure boak at the very hint of pretentiousness.

“When Gayle walked into that dressing room and told a joke about a lassie going out on the mad wine, getting off with a bloke and waking up next to his pal, I said to her ‘Ah feel ah pure know you!’”

A bond was forged. When it comes to connection they make Frozen’s Elsa and Anna seem remote. They make Fran and Anna look like passing strangers.

They didn’t work together however until later. By this time Gayle had worked in John Lewis Direct, booking in washing machine deliveries. She took off to New York to study acting and had a baby, Stevie.

Meanwhile, Louise worked in restaurants and in desperation bought a microphone, a CD compilation and the one-time London star toured the Glasgow pubs singing Sweet Caroline.

The pair, however, had kept in touch and decided they should form an act. But what? They thought they sing big musical songs, but decided to mix it with comedy when they realised singing would hurt the throat.

Plus, the fee for singing was £150. If you add comedy it’s £400.”

They had no comedy ideas. Nothing. What they both had was a role model in comedy survivor Dorothy Paul, (who’d also played a very funny cleaner.)

But they took their sketch ideas to their first gig at a Masonic Club, one Sunday night.

“The convenor wore a blue, red and white tie and there were pictures of the Queen everywhere,” says Gayle. “I thought ‘What the f*** is this?’ “I had never seen anything like it and I’m a Proddy.”

Louise was so nervous she couldn’t make the toilet and had to pee in the sink. But their act went down a storm.

The Masonics loved the tales about the likes of sex-starved Channel Four Sandra, so called because ‘She’d been round the scheme more times than the Secret Millionaire.’

The second gig, however, in Motherwell looked doomed from the moment they walked in to hear a punter say, ‘Are youse funny?’

The girls weren’t that night. They died a slow death. Then the bar owner didn’t want to pay them.

“This woman with Cash Converters jewellery and frosted pink lipstick asked for a discount,” says Gayle. “I said ‘I’ve got a baby to feed.’ We got the money eventually but we sat in the car park ‘till four in the morning, greetin’.”

Gayle says: “We weren’t their cup of tea. The crowd was older, and we were a bit too risque. But we’re no cheekier than the Still Game boys.

“It’s just that women doing (rude) stuff isn’t always so acceptable, not in an older crowd anyway.”

After the Motherwell disaster, they played the bowling clubs and the working men’s clubs, and improved. Then they began to book their own gigs, in clubs which were age and sensibility appropriate.

They put leaflets through doors. They told pals. The Dolls came to life.

During weekdays they would audition for straight acting work.

“We were keeping The Dolls under the radar,” says Louise, anxious that theatre or television producers would pre-judge them. And some did.

One told McCarthy’s agent he wouldn’t see her because she was “all t*** and teeth.” He was talked into auditioning her and admitted he’d been wrong.

Louise joined the National Theatre of Scotland, stealing the show in productions such as Yer Granny, with Gregor Fisher.

Gayle landed River City and became a storming success playing Caitlin, the benefits scrounger.

Meantime, The Dolls developed their sketches into a play, The Dolls Abroad, a very earthy farce which involves winning a holiday trip to a Greek island, a little drug muling and a kidnapping.

When they staged it for a week at the Mitchell Theatre in Glasgow last year it sold out and was seen by producer Robert C Kelly who reckoned the ladies were ready for a national tour.

TV comedy producers, however, have been slow to come knocking - despite both showing they have the comedy chops to work on television, having appeared in BBC Scotland’s Sketchland.

But there’s little doubt the act will grow. (They would be a stick-on for a TV Hogmanay show.)

The filthy cleaner act works not just because they are funny but because they are each other’s biggest fans.

But surely it hasn’t always been so cosy-comfy? Do they ever fall out?

“Oh aye,” says Gayle. “And we cry a lot. It’s really stressful in rehearsals. We feel the pressure.”

“But we de-brief,” says Louise. “Every night after rehearsals we phone each other for 15 minutes.”

“It’s no’ fifteen minutes, it’s an hour, she’s a f****** liar,” says her chum, laughing.

“We need that length of time to sort stuff out. But at the end of every night we always say ‘I love you.’”

The Dolls Abroad, across Scotland from March 17. Go to wearethedolls.com for dates.