Bread & Roses Theatre – 19 October 2024
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
4****
2014 – the year of avocado toast, Conchita Wurst and conscious uncoupling. Sarah Saxby’s show starts with a sweetly awkward hit of nostalgia as she plays Just Dance on her Wii. What follows is a funny and bittersweet trawl through memories of 2014, and the lasting effects on a girl growing up in the middle of nowhere, with the benefit of hindsight and 10 more years of life experience.
Saxby’s sharp and witty writing captures the paradoxical certainty and crippling self-doubt of teenagers, with her self-proclaimed feminist devouring fanfiction romances and dreaming of Harry Styles. Describing 2014 as a golden time – pre-Brexit, pre-Weinstein and post-Gangnam Style – Saxby looks back at events that confused her with a clearer eye and calls out the behaviour for what she now knows it was. Remembering the ferocity and bravery of teen years and regretting that loss in the modern reality of keeping a job and a roof over her head, things begin to get more sombre as grief for the loss of childhood and the loss of a dear family member meld and intensify in this entertaining and insightful hour.
Saxby is a warm and relatable performer, and her brilliantly judged interactions with the audience and the tech booth are comic highlights of the show. As a writer, Saxby shows extraordinary promise, with assured direction from Isabella Westveer de Mul, and they and Sticks Theatre are names to look out for in the future.