It’s not often you walk out of a cinema or theatre, or finish watching something on Netflix and think ‘wow, everyone should watch this’, but Lizzy Connolly’s witty, funny, clever, poignant, sad, mad, cute and angry show Tink at the Tobacco Factory provided one of those moments.
Perhaps it was because I wasn’t expecting much. A one-woman show which promised a sort-of re-telling of a different fairy called Tink didn’t seem to hold promise. The word ‘patriarchy’ was mentioned. I put on a metaphorical seatbelt and prepared to be lectured.
Instead, I was entranced. Written by prolific writer Lizzy Connolly, who then directed the outrageously talented Kat Kleve in the role of Tink, this play was simply brilliant.
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OK, so it’s not about Peter Pan. The five-year-old Tink at the start makes that perfectly clear, expressing outrage at how her more famous namesake was reduced to being a tiny mute in the story we’re all more familiar with. Instead, we were drawn in to an alternative reality where girls are fairies and boys are elves, who go to school, learn to fly, do maths, sports day, have a prom, and get embarrassingly drunk as 16-year-olds.
It was very, very clever, but managed to not be too clever for its own good, through a combination of Kat Kleve’s brilliant, endearing warmth as a performer and an absolutely raw and real script that was just so instantly recognisable and accessible.
Tink sang songs - including one hilarious one based on maths but was so much more - and grew up before our very eyes from a confident five year old who thinks - no, knows - they can do anything, into a troubled, withdrawn and anxious teen.
And we see why, subtly at first. Every time someone says something seemingly innocuous that dents and doubts Tink’s fearlessness, the lights hanging around her dim slightly. The early teenage years are the worst, with tiny little self-policing moments as she tries to navigate friendship groups. By the end, half the audience just wanted to run on stage and give her a huge hug. Without giving too many spoilers away, a letter from her mum at the end provided just the uptick required to this downward slide.
But overall, this was just the best, funny, clever and poignant way to portray exactly what happens to generations of girls and young women. While they might start out being told and rightly thinking they can do anything, achieve anything, be anything, they very often suffer a death by a thousand cuts, lots of little micro-aggressions, bits of behaviour policing often enforced by other girls and mums, and end up with their dreams beaten.
It doesn’t sound particularly cheery, and it isn’t, but don’t worry - there’s enough humour, wit and charm to carry this off, and that makes it all the more poignant. Kat, the former Cotham School pupil who you might well have seen in EastEnders or on a JustEat advert, was simply amazing.
So I walked out thinking, gosh my daughters should see this - they’d love it, they’d recognise it, they’d know. Then I thought, no, every girl and woman should see this, as it will show them what happened to them without them probably even realising it. But then I realised it’s probably more important that every teenage boy and man should see it. Men, we have literally no idea.
* Tink is on at the Tobacco Factory Theatre in Ashton Gate today and tomorrow, Friday and Saturday, March 3 and 4.
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