This production of Dennis Kelly’s one-woman play begins a little like a Netflix special. Barefoot in front of a blank backdrop, our protagonist, played by Aisling Loftus, recounts how she found love in an easyJet queue. Punchlines are delivered with the aplomb of a Palladium standup: Paris is “like Leeds with wide streets”. Insults – “lard-synapsed cockhead” – are as artful as they are crude. A recollection of her “slaggy” years includes a detail so gross-out she instantly repeats it.
We listen as she builds a dream career as a documentary film-maker, her confidence inspired by her new husband. But even as we’re falling for her candour and chutzpah, Kelly is casting shadows that haunt and lengthen. The trace elements of the writer’s dark vein – as seen in his brilliantly disturbing TV series Utopia – are present even in his character’s most triumphant moments.
