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The Sopranos
The Sopranos as a Group
- Country Mouse: They're aware of the cultural gulf between them and the people of the Capital, and they've heard all the old jokes about naive Port residents visiting the city for the first time.
- Culturally Religious: Although the girls are immersed in the Catholic culture of their school, none of them have any strong religious convictions to speak of.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: Sex is a major preoccupation throughout the story, although Kylah and Chell are somewhat blasé about it compared to the others.
- Everybody Smokes: All of them smoke, save for Orla, who only pretends to in a group setting, although its implied that she only abstains because of her cancer and not for any other health concerns.
- Gossipy Hens: Many of their conversations involve gossiping about the goings-on in the Port.
- Girl Posse: From Kay's perspective, they are a tight-knit but also slightly intimidating clique with a lot of social clout.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Their main goal for the trip is to spend the day getting drunk and enjoying themselves.
- Sudden Principled Stand: When Chell, Kylah and Manda go to see Father Ardlui to try and smooth things over with the Sisters, he asks them to lie about seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary to try and turn the Port into a pilgrimage sight. They refuse on the basis that they're "no angels" but they're not going to lie just for the sake of staying in their dump of a school.
- Totally 18: Before approaching the Bouncer at the Mantrap, they make sure that they all have it straight in their heads when they were born.
Fionnula "The Cooler" McConnel
As portrayed by Dawn Sievewright
As portrayed by Abigail Lawrie
Portrayed by: Dawn Sievewright (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Abigail Lawrie (Our Ladies)
- The Ace: Is described in the book as being the best-looking one of the girls. Kylah even points out that Fionnula is a better singer than her.
- AM/FM Characterization: Despite being one of the more worldly members of group, she knows nothing about music. When she heard the news about Kurt Cobain's death, her reaction was to ask what year he was in.
- Angst: When Kay breaks down in her arms, Fionnula has a moment of despair when she asks herself why the utterly random nature of the universe has somehow resulted in so much personal anguish for her friends.
- Attention Whore: Manda claims that Fionnula has an exhibitionist streak, but it's unclear if there's a certain level of Psychological Projection on Manda's part.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Has had a bit of this going in the run-up to the trip with Kay, since she played a prank on her by tying a thread from Kay's kilt to her chair during their Higher English exam.
- Beneath the Mask: Is generally regarded as the Life of the Party by the rest of the Sopranos, but over the course of the book she starts to explore her own identity outside of the group.
- Big Sister Instinct: By her own admission, Orla's illness has made her feel more protective towards her friends.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Fionnula tries to tell Orla in the bathroom at the barrels that all she Kylah, Manda and Chell all love her, but she doesn’t manage to say it before Orla steps out back into the bar.
- Character Development: Fionnula starts out as something of a Fatalist who doesn't feel as though life has anything to offer her beyond the Port. As she and Kay grow closer, she actually starts to feel excited about the future.
- Childhood Friend: With Manda, who she's been pals with since they were toddlers.
- Coming Of Age Queer Romance: Over the course of the day, she goes through one of these with Kay. It's unclear at the end of the first novel what direction their relationship will take.
- Death Glare: Gives Ana-Bessie "the full stare" after she comments on the Kay wearing Kylah's skirt from French Connection.
- Drink-Based Characterization: At the Mantrap, she feels self-conscious about ordering something other than Hooch to drink after she and Manda start becoming more hostile to each other, making it all the more apparent that the two of them are growing apart.
- Hair of the Dog: Her reaction to realising how hungover she is at the station buffet is to get herself a drink.
- Jealous Romantic Witness: When Kay asks Fionnula why she gave her phone number to The Man, Fionnula admits that she hopes Kay felt jealous.
- LGBT Awakening: While Fionnula isn't completely unaware of her attraction to women in the book, the day of the trip is the first time she's ever really acted on those feelings.
- Meaningful Rename: In The Stars in the Bright Sky, she goes by "Finn" rather than "Fionnula", part of the change that she’s gone through since leaving the Port for university in London.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted in the book where Fionnula is known as "Fionnula the Cooler" so as to distinguish her from Ordinary Fionnula, who is only mentioned briefly.
- Red String of Fate: While she holds Kay as she cries, Fionnula realises that it's "just a matter of time" before they have sex. She even feels as though God has brought the two of them together, despite being very ambivalent about the existence of any sort of god at all.
- Sex Equals Love: She realises she's falling in love with Kay not long after the first time they have sex.
- Sorry Ociffer: Had a parental version of this on holiday in Cocklawburn. She got so drunk that she got driven home by a passing couple, but had her legs hanging out the window when she was lying down in the back seat, meaning that she collapsed from the numbness outside her caravan, meaning she had to crawl towards her mum while she insisted she wasn't drunk
- Sentimental Drunk: As she and Kay get progressively drunk at the wine bar, Fionnula thinks about how beautiful Kay is and tells her how good she smells when she ends up falling into Kay's lap.
- Smoking Hot Sex: Smokes a cigarette in bed the morning after she has sex with Kay.
- Tranquil Fury: Manda infuriates Finn by making yet another jab about her and Kay sleeping together, causing Finn to slam down her glass and spill some of her drink in her hand. Manda is nearly bursting out laughing, but Finn just points out that she’s laughing away just after the rest of them have agreed to jack in their holiday for Manda’s sake.
Kylah Campbell
As portrayed by Frances Mayli McCann
As portrayed by Marli Siu
Portrayed by: Frances Mayli McCann (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Marli Siu (Our Ladies)
- Adaptational Jerkass: In the book, Kylah talks about befriending the girl who works at the record counter at Woolworth's and inviting her along on nights out, anticipating that when she inevitably gets pregnant, Kylah will be in a good position to take over her job. In the book, this serves mostly as a commentary on what economic prospects are like in The Port, particularly for young women - Michelle got sacked from her Saturday job at the Superstore when her boss found out about her pregnancy. In the film, however, Kylah actively encourages her to have unprotected sex and manages to get her job when she does indeed fall pregnant. Orla relays this anecdote to the audience to support her description of Kylah as "devious" but this doesn't really build to anything within the film.
- Adaptation Name Change: In the play and the film, her band is called Thunderpup, the name it originally had in the book before Kylah joined and changed it to Lemonfinger.
- AM/FM Characterization: She has very strong opinions about which bands are worth her time and is apparently able to bend the rest of the choir to her will when it comes to music selections on the coach down to Edinburgh. She immediately loses whatever interest she might have had in Danny when she finds out that he listens to "all the wrong bands".
- There’s a hint of Character Development in The Stars in the Bright Sky where she complains about club D Js in the med trying to force their own music tastes onto others, suggesting that she might have matured a little from commandeering the coach cassette player like she did as a teenager.
- Blind Without 'Em: When Michelle turns up at the school, Kylah struggles to see her coming because she doesn’t have her contacts in.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Subverted. Kylah is a talented performer and songwriter but doesn’t harbour any great aspirations for the band she's in. She just wants to get her dream job of working the record counter at Woolies. However, her lack of ambition isn’t framed as laziness. If anything, it seems like a goal that’s actually achievable given the general lack of attractive job opportunities in the Port.
- Facial Dialogue: Since she and Chell have become flatmates, they often communicate nonverbally.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Downplayed. Kylah does feel some guilt about spending the money the band gave her once she starts to sober up, but the events of the day prevent her from lingering on the feeling for too long.
- Named by the Adaptation: She's given the surname McManus in the play.
- Number Two: Is "an agreed first equal" with Fionnula on the length-of-legs wall, but seems quite happy to concede the group leadership to her. She's more preoccupied with her music and tends to sit out the interpersonal drama between Fionnula and Manda.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: In The Stars in the Bright Sky, Manda claims that Finn did a good job of “hiding” that she was clever by partying hard, but even in The Sopranos it was already evident that she was intelligent.
- Race Lift: None of the main characters' ethnicities are specified in the novel. Much as the book talks about the details of the girls' outfits, there's never really a moment when we're given a clear expository overview of their appearances. Given the time and place in which the book is set (rural Scotland in the 1990s), and that the only time race is mentioned is in reference to the "Pakistani lads" who come in from out of town for the Saturday market, and when Kylah refers to Damo Suzuki from Can as "the Jap in the German band", it's possible to infer that the characters are white (specifically from the Irish diaspora in Scotland) from context clues. In the play and the film, both of the actors who play Kylah are East Asian Scots.
- Self-Deprecation: In the first book, particularly, she's dismissive of Spimmy's compliments on her singing, claiming that Fionnula is a better singer.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Her bandmates all fancying her proves to make being in the band much less enjoyable for her.
- Unwanted Harem: Kylah knows that Spimmy and the rest of the band all fancy her, but only because they see her as a muse, the same way they might think of Courtney Love or Hope Sandoval. She had sex with all of them to "get it over with", and ultimately decides to leave the band.
Rachel "Chell" MacDougall
As portrayed by Caroline Deyga
As portrayed by Rona Morrison
Portrayed by: Caroline Deyga (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Rona Morrison (Our Ladies)
- A-Cup Angst: She bemoans her lack of cleavage in The Stars in the Bright Sky.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: In the film, Chell's father is implied to have died more recently relative to the events of the novel than in the book. Also, with the role of the group peacemaker being transferred to Orla, Chell ends up absorbing some elements of Manda and Orla's book backstories, such as Manda's family being in the worst financial situation in compared to the rest of the group. In the book, Orla's family had originally lived in a village outside the Port, which here becomes Chell living out on The Island.
- AM/FM Characterization: Chell describes rap music as sounding like "a whole load of televisions turned on at the same time."
- Caught Coming Home Late: Chell suspects that, rather than confronting her directly about going out late, her mum keeps leaving the spare key outside the door in different places to spite her.
- Disappeared Dad: Chell has two. There's Actual Daddy, her biological father, who she never knew and doesn't seem overly curious about. The man she thinks of as her father was her stepdad, Daddy Patrick, who was Lost at Sea while Chell was still in primary school. (In the film, the two of them are compressed into a single unseen dad). Years later, she's still haunted by her grief over his death. She tries to brush this off in front of her friends, but towards the end of the book, she thinks she sees his face for a moment in a pile of seaweed and lobster traps and her emotions rapidly overwhelm her.
- Friend to All Living Things: Her main career goal is to do something that involves working with animals.
- The Heart: She's generally very caring and supportive towards her friends, particularly Kylah.
- Parental Fashion Veto: She hides some of her more daring clothes in a local bush in order to avoid being given one of these by her mum.
- Running Away to Cry: When the group have their night out at the Barrels after she finished her radiotherapy, she keeps running to the toilets and coming back with her eye makeup a complete mess.
- Slut-Shaming: Although she doesn't harbour any ill will against Michelle, she isn't above joking about Michelle knowing where to find sailors as she's walking up to the school.
- Thrifty Scot: She wraps the sticky bit from her Rizla wrappers around the filter of her cigarettes since that's cheaper than buying stronger ones.
- Tragic Dropout: Averted. Chell only stayed on for Fifth Year because the rest of the group were staying as well.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Chell loves animals, but hates spiders, and will put the plugs in the bath and sink before undressing in her bathroom in case any come crawling out of the drains.
Orla Johnstone
As portrayed by Melissa Allan
As portrayed by Isis Hainsworth
As portrayed by Tallulah Grieve
Portrayed by: Melissa Allan, Isis Hainsworth (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Tallulah Grieve (Our Ladies)
- A-Cup Angst: In the book, Orla is self-conscious about the weight's she's lost as a result of her illness and about how this has affected the size of her chest in particular.
- Adaptation Name Change: Orla's last name changes from Johnstone to McAlister in Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour. In the film it's changed again to Johnson.
- Ambiguously Bi: While she is pretty keen on Stephen once she meets him, in the book there are also some hints that she might be attracted to women as well. When Fionnula seems hesitant to say anything about her night with Kay, Orla gets Fionnula to open up by telling her that she’s always been interested in experimenting with a girl.
- Anti-Climax: In the book, she admits that she was expecting to feel different after having sex with Stephen, but she's just the same person she's always been.
- All Women Love Shoes: She buys herself a fancy pair of lace-up boots and wears them for the rest of the day in the Capital, although she mentions that one her pinkie toes gets pretty sore as a result.
- The Baby of the Bunch: The rest of the girls go out of their way to take care of her, though how true this was prior to Orla's illness is unclear.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. She’s described in the book as having an overly skinny and still-sickly appearance despite her apparent recovery from her illness. In the film, this becomes something of an Informed Attribute as, apart from her short hair, Tallulah Grieve doesn't look as if she's in any worse health than the rest of the cast, which ends up undercutting the scene where Manda tells off some shop assistants for laughing at Orla because they think she looks like a drug addict.
- Carpe Diem: Orla states on the coach that, after having come so close to death, she believes in living for the moment.
- Cool Shades: In the film, she's seen wearing the sunglasses she got in her not-McDonald's Happy Meal.
- The Confidant: Fionnula tells Orla that she had sex with Kay in the final scene of The Sopranos. Kylah and Chell’s behaviour in The Stars in the Bright Sky seems to suggest that Fionnula didn't discuss this with them, although Manda seems to strongly suspect something even if she doesn't have proof.
- Cheated Death, Died Anyway: More from the perspective of Orla's parents than Orla herself. Orla's mother suffered a horrific miscarriage in the sixties, then later went on to have Orla in 1980 or thereabouts, only for Orla to die from cancer as a teenager.
- The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: Averted. Orla and the girls speak about her cancer quite frankly. That is, until Orla realises that it's back. After that, she only refers to it as "[her] sickness".
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: While she was in hospital, Orla tried to have sex with an unconscious Scandanavian sailor on the same oncology ward as her. She regards this as an act of pity, recognising that she would soon be as helpless as he was as result of her own illness. When she tells Manda about this, Manda also thinks of it as a kindness and not a sexual assault.
- Killed Offscreen: Dies during the Time Skip between the first and second book. In the film, her death forms part of the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
- Littlest Cancer Patient: Subverted hard. Orla is just as eager to drink and screw around as the other girls. She's also aware of the fact that she's viewed by the school staff as something of a Mascot because of her illness and for this reason doesn't think that they'll expel her or her friends for drinking.
- Must Not Die a Virgin: This is part of her motivation for hooking up with Stephen.
- Country Mouse: She lived in a small village before moving to the Port, so this applies to her more so than it does to the rest of the group, such as when she tries to pay for her boots in the shoe shop by giving her money to the shop assistant instead of going to the till. Fionnula mentions that she's too intimidated by the unfamiliarity of the local Chinese or Indian takeaway to ever order anything from there.
- Not Afraid to Die: Having realised that her cancer has relapsed, at the end of the novel Orla tells calmly Fionnula that she doesn't want anymore treatment and gives her some of the money that she had been saving for the holiday the group had been planning together.
- Prized Possession Giveaway: She freely spends the money she'd been saving up for a holiday on her friends knowing that she won't live long enough to go on it. When she buys Manda a pair of boots, Manda feels as though something bad will happen if she accepts the gift, perhaps because she's doesn't want to think to hard about what's motivating Orla's spending.
- Pubescent Braces: She wears a retainer, but manages to avert Braces of Orthodontic Overkill since it's removable and fits into the palm of her hand. She needs to wear it for another six months, and because to stop would mean acknowledging that she might not actually have that long to live.
- Sudden Morbid Monologue: A flashback in the novel to when she was in hospital for chemo appears as a monologue in a shoe shop in the play.
- Unbuilt Trope: Although teen sick lit novels certainly existed before the 1990s, Orla feels like a much more subversive version of the female protagonists of YA sick lit novels of the 2010s like The Fault in Our Stars and Before I Die. Rather than chastely pining after a not particularly threatening teenage boy in the hopes of falling in love before she dies tragically, she wants sex and isn’t particularly concerned about who she gets it from. Much as she’s attracted to Stephen, their very brief liaison doesn’t spark off any deeper romantic connection between the two of them.
- Virgin-Shaming: She's embarrassed about her status as a virgin and wants to lose it as soon as possible to make up for the time she lost to her illness. None of her friends give her any stick for it directly, but they do shame other girls in their peer group who they suspect of being virgins.
(A)Manda Tassy
As portrayed by Kirsty MacLaren
As portrayed by Sally Messham
Portrayed by: Kirsty MacLaren (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Sally Messham (Our Ladies)
- Adaptational Comic Relief: Is framed as more a class clown in the film than in the books or novel.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: In the book, Manda runs out of shoe shop because she feels embarrassed being seen with Orla when the shop assistants are talking about how skinny she is. In the film, she actually confronts the shop assistants directly.
- The Alcoholic: By The Stars in the Bright Sky, everyone else has noticed just how much Manda drinks and suspect that she’s on her way to becoming one of these.
- Annoying Laugh: Is described in the book as having a laugh like a "donkey honk."
- Attention Whore: Lampshaded in The Stars in the Bright Sky.Kay: Manda thinks attention deficit disorder means people are not giving her enough attention.
- Finn suspects at one point that Manda might have hidden her lost passport herself just so she could be at the centre of some drama.
- Bath of Poverty: Money is tight enough in the Tassy household that Manda and her dad have to share the bathwater between the two of them * . Manda tries to make the experience a little more pleasant by filling the water with powdered milk.
- Blatant Lies: Lies about having been sick on the Friday night at the Flight Deck when challenged on it by Chell.
- Book Dumb: Kay mentions that Manda didn't do well in her exams. Presumably this is speculation on Kay's part as the book is set in May and results don't usually arrive until August.
- She read most of “Harry Potter and The Philosophies Stone”, claiming that it was too long. The book is about 76,000 words, which is at the low end for novels in terms of average word-count.
- Character Development: Her attention-seeking tendencies get worse in The Stars in the Bright Sky.
- Childhood Friend: As mentioned above, she's been friends with Fionnula since the two of them were very young children.
- Comically Missing the Point: Is often prone to this when in conversation with the rest of the girls.
- Compressed Vice: In the film, Manda seems to have spontaneously overcome her homophobia towards Kay and Fionnula by the time the gang meet up at the train station.
- Control Freak: Kay says that Manda will try to claim the booking at the Flight Deck is in her own name rather than Kay’s because she’s incapable of delegating control to anyone.
- Dislikes the New Guy: Is openly hostile towards Kay in The Stars in the Bright Sky.
- Easily Embarrassed Youngster: She's very self-conscious, but doesn't understand why she feels the way that she does."[W]hy am ah so het-up about what people think about me; who am I trying to impress?"
- Embarrassing Pyjamas: She sleeps in baggy tshirts which depict cartoon characters having sex.
- Fat Idiot / Fat Slob: The others
- Freudian Excuse: In The Stars in the Bright Sky, she claims that Orla's death is the reason why she acts out. Fionnula doesn't buy it.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Seems to be on the verge of becoming this in the book. In an Establishing Character Moment, she fails to offer the rest of the choir any cigarettes from the pack of twenty that her sister brought her back from her holidays, despite always bumming them off the others when the opportunity arises.
- Fun T-Shirt: Manda comes down to the Flight Deck bar wearing a shirt that reads "Some Won’t. Some Might. I Will."
- Hates Being Alone: When debating what to do if Manda can’t find her passport, Finn quips that there’s no way she would agree to return to the Port alone since she won’t even go to the bathroom without an escort.
- Humble Goal: According to Fionnula, Manda's main aspiration in life is to get pregnant as soon as she leaves school, preferably by a guy with a decent job like a mechanic or a forestry worker.
- Hypocrite: She judges Kay for being a virgin, at least as far as she knows, but she herself is still a Technical Virgin at the start of the book.
- In-Series Nickname: Kylah refers to her as “Manda the Demander” in The Stars in the Bright Sky.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Kylah and Chell are quite used to Manda’s ugly crying, to the point where they can pinpoint the exact expression forming on her face when she’s about to start.
- Manipulative Bitch: It’s not clear just how deliberate Manda is in her behaviour. Kylah points out that Manda was the one to suggest that one of the others might have taken her passport from her, which leads to them arguing amongst themselves more rather than focussing on Manda specifically.
- Missing Mum: Manda's mum is nowhere to be seen. No reason is given in the first book for why she left the family, although a brief recollection by Fionnula about in incident in hers and Manda's childhood seems to imply that she was present at some point when Manda was about three or four years old. In the The Stars in the Bright Sky, Manda tells Ava that her mum was an alcoholic, which is why she wasn't in the picture.
- Nature Abhors a Virgin: Fionnula reveals that Manda has overstated her level of experience with guys. By the end of the night, she has sex with the bouncer at the Mantrap.
- Never My Fault: After being sick into her pint glass, she blames Kay for forcing the Red Bull and Vodka on her despite the fact that she was the one who complained about not getting one in the first place.
- '90s Hair: In the play, she has her hair scraped back from her face with a number of butterfly clips.
- Pet the Dog: In The Stars in the Bright Sky, while she’s doing coke with Ava, Manda, after spending the whole novel taking cheap shots at Kay, has a brief moment where she acknowledges that Kay isn’t a conceited person and that she was a huge support to the group when Orla died.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: She does not react well when she sees Kay and Fionnula kiss, nor when she finds out that Catriona had sex with Kay. In The Stars in the Bright Sky, she continually takes homophobic potshots at Kay. Levelling a similar insult at Ava is what pushes Ava over the edge into retaliating against Manda’s behaviour over the weekend by pushing her down a muddy hill.
- When spots an Asian family heading towards check-in, she comments about there being "lots of foreigners" at the airport. When Kylah points out that all of them, except presumably Ava, are foreigners by virtue of being Scots in England, Manda amends this to "lots of weirdos". She also describes Shelly as a "spacker", though this period-typical term is also used by others in the group.
- Poverty Food: Frequently eats "cowboy dinner", i.e. beans on toast, with her dad since it's cheap and he can't cook very well.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Is said in the book to be the spitting image of Catriona.
- Struggling Single Mother: Much as Manda plays up to the idea of being a martyred single mum in The Stars in the Bright Sky, the rest of the girls know that it’s the rest of her family who do all the work of raising Sean.
- Three-Way Sex: She tries to claim that she and Kylah had a threesome with Barry McLean. Kylah points out that the three of them merely ended up in the same bed and that Barry had “boxed the Jesuit” while they were both asleep.
- Trauma Button: The prospect of getting left behind at the airport brings back childhood memories of crying alone in the playground at primary school.
Other Port Residents
Kay Clarke
Portrayed by: Karen Fishwick (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Eve Austin (Our Ladies)
As portrayed by Karen Fishwick
As portrayed by Eve Austin
- Big Fancy House: Lives in a detached house on Pulpit Hill, an affluent area of the Port.
- Brainy Brunette: In the book and play.
- The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Kay’s father is a doctor who is also a religiously-motivated anti-abortion advocate. Kay’s main goal on the trip to Edinburgh is to terminate her pregnancy without him finding out about it.
- '80s Hair: She had a perm in the past. It was so cold in the winter that the mousse she used to put in it would often freeze in her hair when she walked to school in the morning.
- Elegant Classical Musician: She plays the cello, and uses it to great effect when it comes to romancing Fionnula.
- Full-Name Ultimatum: Occasionally uses this in an endearing way with Fionnula.
- Girl in the Tower: When she takes Fionnula up to her house, she mentions that their burglar alarm is so sensitive that she's managed to set it off a few times just by opening her bedroom window during the night to let some air in, leaving her to wonder if its real purpose isn't to keep her in the house rather than to keep thieves out.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Deconstructed. Kay feels as though she can't go through with having an abortion because she believes she needs to be punished for having sex with Iain and Catriona. It's revealed in The Stars in the Bright Sky that she did end up terminating her pregnancy after telling her parents about it.
- Head-Turning Beauty: In the book, she attracts a lot of attention at the Mantrap and the Barrels while she's wearing Kylah's new clothes from French Connection.
- Interclass Friendship: Her relationship with Fionnula starts out as this progressing into her becoming an Uptown Girl to Fionnula. The Stars in the Bright Sky mentions that by the time the girls were in Sixth Year, Kay had been more-or-less fully integrated into the gang.
- Ineffectual Loner: Subverted. Because Kay doesn't have much of a social circle, she's actually been able to experiment sexually with another girl and keep it under wraps, whereas Fionnula had wanted to do something similar for a long time but never felt able to because she knew that someone would be sure to gossip about it if they found out.
- Jealous Romantic Witness: Throughout The Stars in the Bright Sky, Kay experiences some jealousy at seeing Finn and Ava being best friends, although it’s never entirely certain just how close Finn and Ava are. She even feels a somewhat more irrational flurry of possessiveness at seeing Finn and Chell hug while Chell’s in the middle of getting changed.
- Lonely Rich Kid: Kay is an only child whose parents apparently spend a lot of time away from The Port, leaving Kay home alone. At the start of the novel, it's clear that she has trouble fitting in with the other girls at school, save for the other Token Rich Student, Ana-Bessie, due to their different worldviews and priorities as a result of the difference in their economic backgrounds.
- Mood Whiplash: In-Universe, when she's drunk in Casualty she goes very quickly from trying to ask the doctor treating her to marry to cussing him out and threatening to grass him up to his wife.
- Out-of-Character Alert: While in McDonalds, the girls notice how Kay didn't seem to be making much of an effort in rehearsals, which is unlike her, suggesting that Kay is preoccupied by something besides the competition.
- Rich Language, Poor Language: Particularly in the first book, Kay's speech is much closer to Scottish Standard English
than the rest of the girls, who fall more towards the Scots end of the dialect spectrum. - No Pregger Sex: Averted - she has sex with Fionnula.
- Sixth Ranger: The end of the first novel hints at this when Kylah suggests they collaborate on a music project, and in The Stars in the Bright Sky we learn that she became a part of the main group during Sixth Year.
- Spoiled Sweet: Offers to pay for Michelle to get into The Mantrap when she complains about being too skint to go out with the rest of the girls, only to get called out by Fionnula for committing a major faux pas by doing so.
- Sour Prudes: Is mistakenly believed to be this by the Sopranos at the start of the first novel.
- Teacher's Pet: Kay and Ana-Bessie are the only ones who laugh at Sister Condron’s attempts at jokes, although there are some hints that Kay is just as dismissive of her under the surface as the Sopranos are openly contemptuous of her. In Chell's flashback to Primary Four, Kay is more a straightforward example of this trope, as she immediately grasses up Chell to their teacher when she spots her licking a wall.
- Three-Way Sex: Had a threesome with Catriona and Iain Dickinson, which results in her getting pregnant.
- Trying Not to Cry: She has to fight back tears after Fionnula tears her down for offering to pay Michelle’s way into the Mantrap.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Downplayed|Trope. In the first book, Fionnula falls in love with Kay of the course of the day. While Kay at least reciprocates the attraction between them, the reader never gets any insight into her thoughts, so she comes across as something of a cipher. In The Stars in the Bright Sky, we get more of an insight into Kay’s perspective than Finn’s, and Kay seems to be experiencing some jealousy at seeing Finn being so close with Ava, with Finn’s feelings towards Kay being less clear.
- Wine Is Classy: In The Stars in the Bright Sky, she tends to drink wine while the rest of the girls are on the spirits.
- You Can Leave Your Hat On: She takes off her clothes in front of Fionnula and plays her cello naked for her.
Michelle MacGregor
As portrayed by Claire Gordon
Portrayed by: Karen Fishwick (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Claire Gordon (Our Ladies)
A former pupil who has dropped out due to her Teen Pregnancy.- Back for the Finale: In the book, she briefly joins the girls for part of their night out after the competition.
- Foreshadowing: She shows up at the school at the start of the day on her way to her antenatal appointment. Kay's ham-handed attempt to be kind to her by offering to pay for her to get into the Mantrap hints at Kay's own Teen Pregnancy.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Played with. She thinks that abortion is a sin and chose to continue her pregnancy, but she also feels that it's a decision for an individual and that she wouldn't judge another girl for having one.
- No Pregger Sex: Averted. She still carries condoms after getting pregnant since she doesn't intend to stop having sex.
Other Choir Members:
The other pupils in the school choir are listed early on in the book, but are only mentioned in passing thereafter:- Aisling - A
One-Scene Wonder who contributes to the conversation about the submariners at the start of the book by talking about a bizarre sex dream she had once. - Ana-Bessie Baberton - Another fee-paying pupil like Kay. Her dad works as a solicitor. At the start of the novel, she and Kay appear to be friends due to their shared Token Rich Student status, but Kay admits that she didn't confide in Ana about the threesome and her resulting pregnancy because she didn't think that Ana could handle it.
- Assumpta
- English Katie - Used to play Barbies with Chell. She has a baby sister who Kylah has babysat in the past.
- "Ordinary" Fionnula Morton - She and English Katie are briefly seen having lunch with Kay in McDonalds
- Iona
- Shuna - In the play, she’s given the surname MacLaughlin and made into a Composite Character with Michelle MacGregor.
- Yolanda McCormack: Was originally a soprano when she joined the choir but now sings in a lower section due to her heavy smoking habit.
- Fat Clodagh and Wee Maria McGill - Towards the end of the book, we find out they’ve had a similarly wild day as they've been arrested for shoplifting.
Catriona Tassy
Portrayed by: Megan Shandley (Our Ladies)
- Cool Big Sis: Is idolised by Manda. This waivers when Manda finds out that she had sex with Kay, but by The Stars in the Bright Sky, their dynamic seems to have re-established itself.
- The Ghost: She never appears onstage in the play.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Is said to have done a lot of hard partying on her holiday to Lloret de Mar.
- Three-Way Sex: Had a threesome with Iain Dickinson and Kay.
- Thrifty Scot: According to Manda, when going on holiday, she buys a copy of Cosmopolitan with free toiletry samples so she has everything she needs for the time she's away.
Iain "The Dick" Dickinson
Portrayed by: Adam Hope (Our Ladies)
- Composite Character: In the film, he's merged with Kylah's bandmate Spimmy and Michelle's unnamed babydaddy.
- Lust Object: Is considered to be "a right spunker" by the girls in the choir. In the film, Orla specifically admits to fancying him.
- Really Gets Around: He already has a bit of a reputation in the book for impregnating both Moira Grierson and Kay, but thanks to him being a Composite Character in the film, there he's also revealed to had have sex with Kylah, Michelle and Fionnula. He attempts to put the moves on Orla in the Mantrap, who turns him down, and according to the epilogue eventually ends up in a relationship with Manda.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His threesome with Catriona and Kay proves to be the catalyst for much of what happens over the course of day.
Sister "Condom" Condron
Portrayed by: Kirsty MacLaren, Karen Fishwick (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Kate Dickie (Our Ladies)
As portrayed by Karen Fishwick
As portrayed by Kate Dickie
One of the sisters who teaches at the school and runs the school choir.- Adults Are Useless: For all her bluster, she can’t even manage to get the choir to the competition and back without anyone getting arrested or hospitalised.
- Faint in Shock: Does this when Manda has to be the one to explain that she Orla, Chell and Kylah had their uniforms stolen and Manda lowers a bag she'd been holding in front of herself to show just how short her French connection skirt is.
- Hypocrite: She tells the girls to set aside their selfish desires on the trip for the good of the choir, but her motivation for entering the choir into the competition is to win the cash prize and chase after a false notion of prestige that only she cares about.
- Rich Language, Poor Language: In the stage show, she speaks with a Kelvinside accent.
- Stern Nun: Particularly in the book, she's portrayed as a humourless authority figure who's completely out of touch with the needs and goals of her students. She's softened a little in the film.
- The Obi-Wannabe: Fionnula criticises her for caring too much about trying to bolster the school's image by having the choir compete in the competition, claiming that it has nothing to do with any of the problems the pupils at the school are actually facing in their lives. She goes on to say that if Sister Condron and the rest of the nuns were a bit more laid back about the choir, she and Manda would be more enthusiastic about it rather than actively disrupting it.
- Chell also says in a separate conversation that in general, the nuns are so old and out of touch they don't really have any respect for them because they're so easy to wind up.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Her reaction to the stolen uniforms incident.
Sister Fagan "The Pagan"
Sister Condron's sidekick, who appears the start of the book.- Adapted Out: Doesn't appear in the play or film.
- Caring Gardener: She has her own greenhouse on the convent lawn, and frets over Lord Bolivia after he flies away from the chapel.
Father Ardlui
The school's parish priest.- The Bore: He seems incapable of giving a sermon likely to hold anyone’s attention.
- Cigar Chomper: He smokes cigars as well as pipe in an attempt to cultivate an image as an intellectual.
- Corrupt Church: Downplayed. His biggest concern seems to be improving the Port's economic prospects, and even goes so far as to attempt to recruit Chell, Kylah and Manda into his scheme to turn it into a major pilgrimage by manufacturing a sighting of the Virgin Mary. He's conscious of the fact that he isn't all that different from McPherson and his quest to find young women to staff his would-be brothel.
- Demoted to Extra: He gets a passing mention at the end of the play, and is fully Adapted Out of the film.
- Laser-Guided Karma: He bought a chandelier for the dining room in the parochial house where he lives, but when it collapsed thanks to the Mud Bucket rattling by on the road outside, some parishioners thought this was what he deserved for buying something so extravagant.
- The Missionary: Spent eleven years in Kenya at some point in the past before taking up his current position in The Port.
- Most Writers Are Writers: He's working on a novel in between his priestly duties. When he goes down to the submarine to minister to the dead sailor, he wonders idly if he can find a way to work the day's events into his book.
Miss "Pick and Flick" Cameron
Chell’s teacher in Primary Four.- Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: She's a wheelchair user who Chell suspects took out her frustration at being unable to walk on her pupils.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After being openly abusive towards her pupils, none of them stop to help her escape when a fire breaks out in the school, so she’s left in a panic thinking she’s going to die until Chell decides to come to her aid.
Buzz MacDougall
The brother of Chell’s late stepfather, and also the husband of Chell’s older sister, Shirley.- The Alcoholic: Buzz would frequently stop at pubs and drive drunk between them while looking after Shirley and Chell, leaving them waiting in the Zebra with only the beehives for company even when it got cold and dark.
- Lecherous Stepparent: Is implied to have been this to Shirley, but we don't find out anything about how their relationship started or even just how much older Shirley is than Chell. Chell jokes that her family tree is "more like a stick!".
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Presumably “Buzz” is a nickname related to his beekeeping and not his given name, which we never find out.
- Thrifty Scot: Chell claims that he used to fill up all the cushions in his house with his own hair to save money.
Jamie Prenter
Manda’s ex-boyfriend of three years, who belongs to a rough family.- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: When Jamie was thirteen, his parents would have him drive them back from the pub and give him ten pence for every car he overtook.
McNiven
A local Protestant undertaker.- Establishing Character Moment: We know that Father Ardlui doesn't think too much of him because, unlike the captain of the submarine, he isn't able to keep his hat on in the high winds when Ardlui goes out to meet them at the pier.
Sergeant McPherson
A police sergeant in the Port.- Dirty Cop: He bought the Mantrap so that he could turn the rooms above the club into a brothel.
Station Guy
A British Rail employee working in the Port station buffet.- Adapted Out: He doesn't appear in the film.
- AM/FM Characterization: He got so fed up with the CD selection in the buffet jukebox that he swapped them out for his own CDs, changing all the heavy metal albums to reggae classics.
- Eccentric Townsfolk: Probably the most obvious example of this that we're shown out of the background characters living in the Port. He was previously arrested for leaving anarchist slogans in amongst the books and tourist tat at the local newsagent's.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: In the play, he occasionally includes some Gaelic in his speech, although this isn't written down in the published script.
- No Name Given: He's only known as "Station Guy" in the script of the play and isn't given a specific name or moniker in the book.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Since he's quitting his job at the buffet, he gives himself and the girls free drinks and fry-ups.
Sean
Manda's son, born during the Time Skip between The Sopranos and The Stars in the Bright Sky.- Morality Pet: Manda tries to use him as a way to garner sympathy from her friends, with variable results.
- Strong Family Resemblance: He bears such a strong resemblance to his father that he doesn’t seem to have taken any of his looks from Manda.
Elsewhere
Stephen
As portrayed by Martin Quinn
Portrayed by: Kirsty MacLaren (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Martin Quinn (Our Ladies)
The young man Orla meets in the Pillbox.- Big Entrance: In the book, he enters the Pillbox and rides up to the bar on an old orange chopper bike.
- Blind Without 'Em: In the play, he apparently couldn't clearly see what Orla looked like before he started chatting her up.
- Crosscast Role: In the stage show, he's played by the actor playing Manda.
- Hidden Depths: In the book, he's not necessarily the benign Nice Guy he appears to be. When Orla tells him that he can do anything he wants to her, his reaction to this, thinking of both Orla and her friends is that "[t]hese chicks are the damaged goods."
- Nerd Glasses: More present in the book than the play or film - Kylah thinks of him as a "speccy weirdo".
- Vague Age: His age is never stated. He's old enough to have a job and seems to be at least of a comparable age with Orla and the rest of the Sopranos or maybe slightly but not significantly older, so perhaps nineteen or twenty.
- The Stoner: He's apparently in the habit of getting baked in the wee hours of the morning. It's heavily implied that The Man, whose budgie he is looking after, is his dealer.
Velcro Suit/Terry Mooney
As portrayed by Stuart Martin
Portrayed by: Dawn Sievewright (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Stuart Martin (Our Ladies)
The leader of the group of men who chat the girls up in The Pillbox.- Casanova Wannabe: Manda tells him straight up that she thinks his chat-up lines are terrible.
- Crosscast Role: In the play, he's played by the actor playing Fionnula.
- Entitled to Have You: Sits himself down with a pint at the girls' table despite being snubbed by them multiple times.
- Male Frontal Nudity: Done while doing a handstand, no less. In the stage show, this is stylised as the actor doing an open-legged handstand and one of the bandmembers sticking an arm between them. It's Played Straight in the film.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: He's only known as "Velcro Suit" in the book because he wears one in order to attach himself to the velcro stunt wall in The Pillbox.
- Slip into Something More Comfortable: Says this almost verbatim when he disappears into his room in order to strip off to show off his supposedly squid-ink-enhanced erection.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Subverted. Manda actually finds the suit he wears really off-putting.
- Textual Celebrity Resemblance: Manda comments that he obviously thinks he's Bryan Ferry.
The Divorcee/Bobby
As portrayed by Jack Greenlees
Portrayed by: Karen Fishwick (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Jack Greenlees (Our Ladies)
- Crosscast Role: In the play, he's played by the actor playing Kay.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Breaks down in tears and locks himself in the bathroom after showing the girls his wedding video.
Danny
As portrayed by Chris Fulton
Portrayed by: Melissa Allan, Isis Hainsworth (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour), Chris Fulton (Our Ladies)
- Crosscast Role: In the play, he's played by the actor playing Orla.
- Stutter Stop: Averted. He has a mild-to-moderate stutter but it doesn't disappear at dramatic moment.
The Man
Portrayed by: Frances Mayli McCann (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour)
- The Aggressive Drug Dealer: Is quite insistent that he can offer Fionnula and Kay something that will take their fancy despite their multiple refusals.
- Adapted Out: Does not appear in the film.
- Crosscast Role: In the play, he's played by the actor playing Kylah.
- The Oldest Profession: It's implied that he may also being doing some pimping as well as dealing, given how the girls loitering outside The Broadsword react to the mention of him.
- Tattoo as Character Type: He declares to Fionnula and Kay that several brand names tattooed onto his body to save money on having to buy the actual clothes.
Ava Hurmalainen
Fionnula's flatmate who joins the girls for their holiday in The Stars in the Bright Sky- The Beautiful Elite: Is both dizzyingly wealthy and extremely good-looking.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Comes across at first as affable and down-to-earth despite her parents' wealth, but later emerges as having a very manipulative personality.
- Brainless Beauty: Kay briefly wonders if this might be the case with Ava when they first meet. It isn’t.
- Designated Driver: She refuses a drink while picnicking at Hever Castle since she's the one driving the hire car.
- Everyone Looks Sexier if French: Has a French father and is considered very glamorous and exotic by the rest of the group.
- Foil: To Manda. As Ava points out, they both believe in questioning established beliefs and acting according to one’s wants and desires., but the class divide between the two of them shows just how society has different rules for the rich.
- Going Cold Turkey: She's managed to stay clean for a few weeks at Fionnula's urging, but Manda's behaviour over the course of the book drives her to a relapse.
- Head-Turning Beauty: The first thing Kay notices about her when she sees her for the first time is how attractive she is. When she goes up to the bar at the airport pub, Manda, Chell and Kylah all stare at her arse in an attempt to find some flaw. Both Chell and Kylah concede that she’s gorgeous, but Manda thinks that there’s something suspicious about her.
- Jewish American Princess: She's not American, but comes from a wealthy family describes herself as "lapsed Jewish", in contrast to the rest of the main characters who've grown up in The Port where they presumably only ever encountered Protestants and other Catholics like themselves.
- Power High: She gets a sexual thrill out of convincing others to try cocaine for the first time.
- Secretly Wealthy: Double Subverted. Given the veritable class chasm between her and the rest of the leads, Ava doesn't bother to pretend that her parents aren't wealthy, but she tries to portray them as moderately wealthy Non-Idle Rich who just happen to own a listed house. Fionnula later blows this wide open when she tells Kay that Ava's parents are aristocrats with a secret vault in France where they keep the paintings that they own and are too highly insured to be put on display.
- Self-Deprecation: Ava says that her French is rusty, but Finn contradicts this by saying that Ava is fluent and that she’s heard Ava muttering in French while she dreams.
- Textual Celebrity Resemblance: The rest of the group remark on her resemblance to Jenny Agutter in The Railway Children.
Joanne and Ben
A friend of Ava’s and her boyfriend.- Beneath the Mask: On the surface, they appear to be a perfectly happy couple, but both of them are dealing with some pretty serious trauma from childhood sexual abuse.
- Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality: Both of them were sexually abused by relatives as children, meaning that they have been not able to develop a sexual relationship with one another or have sex with Ava when she proposes a threesome.
