I know Alice. I think I pretty much was Alice, and I definitely wore those skinny jeans. The Alice in question is 16 years old and lives in the “shit-hole that is Ealing”. Tomorrow, Alice is going to have sex for the first time and she’s very nervous. You’ll feel nervous too: there’s a moving honesty about Amy Blakelock’s new play. It isn’t particularly radical or new – despite the plot point involving social media – but it is written with an open heart and open mind.
As Alice breathlessly counts down the minutes to her first sexual encounter, she tells us everything she’s thinking and feeling. Sometimes it’s a little too much, and there’s no doubt this one-woman play – verging on a diary entry – could do with a sharp edit. The endless similes (feelings are variously compared to electricity, treacle and cement) can get cloying. But there’s a naivety about Blakelock’s writing and Robyn Wilson’s gently persuasive performance that ultimately works quite well. Here is a young woman IRL: unfiltered, unsure of herself but utterly truthful.
Director Hannah de Ville, with the aid of Dan Saggars’ lighting and Anna Clock’s humming sound design, does a good job of suggesting the pervasive influence of social media. Every time Alice receives a text from her crush, the lights flicker and the music swells. When she looks upwards to read her texts, there’s something oddly spiritual in her stance. And when Alice’s private life is made agonisingly public, a large block in her bedroom suddenly lights up. It’s blindingly bright and, as Alice looks down, it threatens to swallow her whole.
At the Blue Elephant theatre, London, until 23 November.
