Tell Me Anything

David Ralfe’s teenage love was much like any other, with a challenging twist. His girlfriend Kate suffered from an eating disorder, thrusting him at a young age into a precarious situation. A book on dolphin training was his only steer.

As his monologue unfolds it becomes clear that David is a very loving and important influence on Kate. Despite her ongoing issues, including self harm, he sticks by her and swims hard to keep her from drowning. It becomes obvious that her parents are little help, so it's left to him to—as he explains it—patrol the border between her mind and body.

Ralfe, who reads extracts from his teenage diary, reveals touching details: he wore Kate’s jumper to school and wrote poems about her in class. He feels visceral rage when he sees magazines that shame celebrity bodies. And he knows that the power of his love alone will not be enough to save her.

The production, directed by Christopher Harrisson, doesn’t always cohere. The visual allegory of cardboard tubes, which stand on end and are frequently rearranged and knocked down, is unconvincing. And the final third fails to round the story off effectively. 

But points about teen psychology and the problems our body-obsessed media create are powerfully made, and the fact this is told from a male perspective matters. Young men in search of role models should look no further than David.