REVIEW: 26.2 REASONS TO STAY ALIVE at Old Red Lion Theatre (FreshFest) 23 - 25 January 2024

‘a recipe for how to be your own heroine’ ★★★★

This is a play about someone who ran a marathon. While doing it she found that her past struggles and her success at overcoming them helped her through the hardship she felt while running that marathon.

Laura Mugford has written one of those feel-good stories that we all like to hear. Where someone, in this case a child with an illness, has fought against the adversity of the illness and comes out on top. Then there is the parallel where as an adult she runs a marathon and in spite of all the tough things that happen to her physically and psychologically during the marathon, she completes it and so comes out on top again. Also, she was bullied as a child, and she overcomes the effects of this too and so this is a triple triumph.

Luckily this personal story does not slide into the realms of self-indulgence or self-pity. Neither does it brag or bluster about self-aggrandizement. Instead it just tells the story in a modest, honest way which has everyone in the audience rooting for our competitor.

The play is performed while she recaps these memories with flashbacks to the past. She describes her illness in hospital and events in her school sports day and they are joined up to her account of her marathon run. This might be a form of psychotherapy where life-marathon-play are melded into this success story. Recovery from illness could be therapy for bullying as health is more important to us than anything else so it might put one in a positive frame of mind to be more ready to take on the next battle. The marathon or celebration of the success of completing it does the same or something similar. Whichever way round you look at it, it all appears in a positive light and is a recipe for how to be your own heroine.

She has a running machine on stage and spends much of the time running. She comes out at the beginning, sits down and puts her trainers on with great determination.  There is a soundtrack which fits in very neatly within this rapidly paced monologue which is very well performed. She speaks very fast and there is a lot of information so the dialogue runs along quickly but is never rushed and is so well delivered that you can hear every word perfectly all the way through.

The lighting and costumes were all quite straightforward. All in all, a very tidy, well delivered piece of theatre. Although this is nothing spectacularly exceptional or original it is, nevertheless, a good story about someone who despite their setbacks has achieved something that they are really proud of and so is something then that the writer too should be proud of.

Who needs self-help books when you have plays like this that prove that theatre can be therapy as well as entertainment and there is no need for pharmaceutical antidepressants?

Written and performed by Laura Mugford, Directed by Connor McCrory, Produced by Just a Regular House

Reviewed by Robert McLanachan