In Lee Hall’s play with songs, six Catholic schoolgirls sing like angels but swear, drink and shag like there’s no tomorrow.

Taking to the stage, six teenage schoolgirls in kilts, school jumpers and Doc Martens, line up and deliver a sublime six-part version of the trio Lift Thine Eyes from Mendelssohn’s Elijah. The next minute they are talking dirty about submariners drowning in their own spunk after too long at sea, punctuating their exuberant, potty-mouthed chat with more swear words than the proverbial sailor.

The cast of Our Ladies of Perpectual Succour. Photo by Manuel Harlan

Armed with soft drink bottles and thermos flasks laced with alcohol, the girls from the small Scottish seaside town of Oban are off to Edinburgh to represent their Catholic school – Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour (or “the Virgin Megastore” as they dub it) – in a choral competition. However, they’re more interested in “going mental” and getting drunk, getting laid and then getting back to the scuzzy local nightclub The Mantrap in time for the final slow dances.

Co-produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour follows...