Happiness is a Cup of Tea

Fiona Nash (Annie McKenzie) doesn’t know why she’s here. She has returned to a cliff top on the south coast, close to where her family ran a hotel. Upon hearing the news that her mother has died, she is preparing a eulogy. Has she come to Beachy Head for inspiration, contemplation or simply to escape from the stifling heat of London?

Nash rummages around the bloody wound of bereavement and begins to question her sense of purpose; without her mother, she feels understandably lost and alone. Shifting between spoken word and straight speech, she tries to make sense of a world that's been dramatically torn apart. Existence is now precarious – perhaps hinted at a little too obviously by setting this play on the edge of a cliff.

McKenzie gives a bruised, sincere performance as Nash, attempting to disentangle her discordant emotions but remain stern now that she has nobody to look to for support. Her lines are delivered at a startling pace, at times without enough opportunity for pause so that we might take in her grief. There are moments of genuine hurt here, which are made to feel all the more poignant when McKenzie uses puppets to go on humorous detours.

But this feels like 60 minutes of a much longer play. The narrative dots are never quite connected and we’re treated to an hour of disjointed reflections on loss. McKenzie is able to maintain the momentum with plenty of energy, but its over-simplistic vision of life without loved ones needs greater clarity.