Zero

Beth’s had better birthdays. Tonight, on her 21^st, she’s stumbled out of a club, heels in hand, to have a cigarette. She doesn’t even smoke, she just needs to get away from her friends and family for a bit – and to tell us a story. In Rachel Kelly’s caustically funny and grippingly structured monologue (performed by Grace Vance), a young woman’s painful memories unravel over the course of a nervous, drunken splurge, drawing us in with banter and sass before hitting us with a sucker-punch reveal.

Vance nails the neurotic, proudly gobby Beth with warmth and charisma, pacily holding her audience’s attention as she switches in and out of a number of other characters in what becomes an increasingly sordid and disturbing tale about a school-age relationship. She skilfully captures the way the character’s quick wit is used to deflect attention from her emotional vulnerability, and balances the shades of darkness and light in Kelly’s script with grit and flair.

Zero bravely dissects some of the nuances around sex, trauma, age and consent – it’s not an untold story by any means, but is particularly astute in how it examines the psychology of survivors, subtly enmeshing the contradictory feelings of anger and guilt as Beth wrestles with the implications of her teenage experience. Brave, distinctive and generous, this is a strong contribution to the impassioned feminist theatre we've seen at this year’s Fringe, and one that shows exciting promise for a young writer and performer.