Lottie Walker originally aimed to cover 30 in her Fringe Show Bloody Mary(s) but is now challenging herself to double and namecheck 60 – averaging a Mary a minute. The audience also get to nominate their own favourite women of that name (in its many forms with Marias and Mariams joyfully embraced). And then the big decision – which would you invite to dinner? Here are some options: • Moll King - 18th-century criminal who was transported to America at least three times but always escaped and found her way back to London. • Mary Anning – fossil collector and palaeontologist who helped transform our understanding of prehistoric life. • Mary Berry – Much loved TV presenter, food writer and journalist who brought happiness and splendid sponges to millions with The Great British Bake Off. • Maria Callas – one of the greatest opera singers of all time. • Mary Shelley – author of Frankenstein and mother of science fiction who reputedly lost her virginity atop her mother’s grave. • Mary Seacole – Jamaican nurse famed for her work in the Crimean war. • Mary Mallon – Irish cook who lived in the US and unwittingly infected 57 people with a potentially fatal disease, becoming known as “Typhoid Mary”. • Mary Read – high seas pirate and terror of the Caribbean. • Mary Queen of Scots – there’s hardly a more famous woman in Scottish history and few have led more colourful, ultimately tragic, lives. • Mary Tudor – the infamous Bloody Mary (after whom the cocktail was named) who wanted to return England to Catholicism and underlined the point by burning Protestants at the stake. • Mary Wilson – Founding member of the Supremes, the top Motown act of the 60s. • Mary Pickford – The most recognisable woman in the world in her early 20th-century heyday. A pioneering figure of the silent movie industry, as an actress she was Hollywood’s first millionaire and as a businesswoman co-founded United Artists. • Mary Quant – Swinging 60s icon, the fashion designer who popularised the mini skirt. • Marie Lloyd – Music hall star and comedian, famous for her love of double entendres and enduring songs like Don’t Dilly Dally on the Way. • Moll Cutpurse – 17th-century cross-dressing highway robber and pimp who shot and robbed a military general, kept parrots and bred mastiffs – each had its own bed with sheets and blankets. • Marie Antoinette - Last queen of France who dissolute lifestyle, vast spending and alleged cake-based comments about what the starving French populace should eat when bread became unaffordable ended up with a trip to the guillotine. Lottie has put together the show with many of the same team who created the Fringe hit Chopped Liver & Unions. She said: “Good, bad, bonkers, inspirational, pioneering, brilliant, and downright dangerous. Marys have been and done just about everything possible and this show romps through some of their achievements and antics. “While some have earned enormous fame, all too many have been sidelines by history, but we’re going to celebrate as many as we can in the space of an hour. “Come along, add to or list with your own suggestions and then make the big decisions of which to invite to dinner. Mary Berry looks like a good option, Typhoid Mary maybe less so. But you decide.”

Description supplied by the event organiser.