Rachel Parris: The Commission

Rachel Parris is fighting the room. Not because of any audience hostility, far from it, but because The Counting House ballroom is boiling. Fortunately the actress, musician, comedian and improviser is packing sufficient witty ditties and withering lines to keep us attentive. We're on our toes immediately as Parris adds a deft twist to even the simplest instruction: "You'll want to join in – but don't," she remarks as she launches into a song.

For The Commission, Parris plays a renegade version of herself. She supplies music for corporate clients for a living, but here she suggests alternative compositions that she would like to send to, for example, Disney (a riposte to all that clean-livin' fun exhibited in High School Musical) and to the X-Factor (an ego-fest spoof ballad called 'Amazing'). While the musical influences change (tunes include an R'n'B ode to the sexual allure of ankles, part Jay Z, part Queen V), Parris's soprano style remains constant.

Constancy and consistency is the Parris way, her flow and poise almost too clean. The background thread on which the show leans is a yarn about her missing a friend and former flatmate, Caroline. She has now moved in with her fiancé, for whom Parris has nothing but scorn. The hurt she is feeling brings forth a number of her own insecurities and fleshes out her character. Perhaps there could have been more back story to join the dots of her compositions, but the conceit is disarming, and original by comparison to treading the familiar ground of a jilted songstress.