Up in Lights

The touching true story of a young 1920s ‘flapper’, who dreamed of becoming a chorus girl

‘Early that January, there was snow on the ground, and Victoria Carmen took a violent chill. I played Principal Boy in her place. At last! MARJORIE GRAHAM was all alone in electric lights outside the King’s Theatre, Edinburgh!’

Born into an ordinary Edinburgh family in 1904, Marjorie Graham was expected to grow up like any other respectable girl. But her childhood dance classes with friends instilled a burning desire in her: to be a star.

She couldn’t have chosen a better time. As the roaring Twenties of jazz, Gatsby and glamour flared into life, young Marjorie got her first break as a chorus girl. But the glamour of being a ‘flapper’ brought with it hidden dangers, an altogether darker world of failed love affairs, poverty and addiction to drink…

From chorus girl, to actress, to raconteur and everything in between, this is the touching, tragic story of an ordinary woman with an extraordinary zest for life, whose name was destined to be up in lights.