Southwark Playhouse Borough – until 15 November 2025
Reviewed by Laura Mobilia
4****
This is the story of a young woman trying to get over her shyness while going through the struggles that comes with it. The audience are her imaginary friends, and she finds love, passion, and relationships …. Only in her mind.
As soon as you walk into the theatre, the stage is beautifully designed, everything is pink, the set, the props, the costumes, that takes us inside the life of this character, Shy girl, played by Isabel Renner.
The pink colour all over the place speaks about this character, who is determined to find love, friendships, and a boyfriend especially.
In the centre of the stage there is a big table with chairs, and it’s interesting to see that the audience is invited to sit there and watch the show from inside the stage, this helps to break the fourth wall and creates a relationship between the audience and the actor.
However, even though the idea of getting the audience involved into this birthday party is clear from the beginning by sitting people in the main table at the centre of the stage, it’s not well developed and it doesn’t get to that point where the audience is really involved. It would have been better to make them participate a bit more and not just being spectators of the show.
The play is a monologue, and Isabel Renner is a great actor and comedian. She has a sense a of humour that makes the audience laugh every few minutes. She is also the writer, so she can take all the credit for making the audience laugh their hearts out during the whole play.
The set is simply perfect; it recreates the atmosphere of the show into a birthday party of a young woman who dreams and discovers her own desires.
The props are the right ones. We see a kitchen recreated which has a fridge, a sink and even a rubbish bin, but some of these are just part of the decoration and it would have been better if they were used and taken more advantage of.
The script is good and well delivered by the actor, who gives an excellent performance, but it would have been better if there were more actions involved and not only using the spoken word.
The best qualities of the show are the set design and costumes by Lucy Fowler, the lighting by Catja Hamilton, and the performance by Isabel Renner which all together works perfectly well.
This is a funny show worth seeing, which is a delight for your eyes.