REVIEW: DAZZLING! by Holly Sewell at Etcetera Theatre 11 - 16 December 2023

‘hugely entertaining, well-paced, well-acted play’ ★★★★

This one-person show has been described as ‘Fleabag for a new generation’. Any comparison to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s highly successful show is taking a big risk, running a gauntlet of potential accusations (from people like me, I suppose) of hubris or conceit but it doesn’t stop Dazzling! from being a night of brilliant theatre.

Thematically, Dazzling and Fleabag do have obvious crossovers: young women at a crisis point in their lives, making silly decisions, with patchy support from family, and friends who feel betrayed. The affluent, apparently comfortable backgrounds of these characters are also explored, creating the easy-breezy parental figures who just never spoke about the more difficult stuff, and now seem to survive on a diet of wine and easy nonchalance. In Dazzling!, we meet Alix (Charlotte Scott-Haynes), who has quit their summer job to focus on their aspiration of being a poet, as well as their relationship with Fiona, with whom Alix is, at first, devoted. Caught in the middle is Alix’s best friend Jan, who is there to look after them until they slip back into excessive drinking.

I’ll say straight from the off that the story itself does follow well- trodden paths. But the play in performance is excellent. We are greeted on entry with a stage strewn with empty bottles, screwed up clothes and paper, all the detritus of Alix’s life. At the rear, a huge banner with poetry and other contemplations scrawled across it, gives us patchy insights into Alix’s psyche. And I always have huge admiration for a performer who can carry a room, on their own, from beginning to end, which Scott-Haynes does with confident ease. The performance was consistently on-point, funny, engaging, and hitting the right notes for gaining our sympathies. I loved the sneering embodiments of the pedantic boss and distant mother, curling of lip and snarling of voice. I noted that those closer to Alix, Jan and Fiona, did not suffer the same treatment, testament to the love felt for these characters.

There is great writing too; maybe a guilty pleasure is seeing a character who is a bit of a wreck but can articulate it beautifully. For example, Alix is taken to life drawing classes by their mother, where Alix enjoys being able to ‘see the landscape of your last few months on someone else’s body’. The final line, ‘I really hate being alone’, followed by that immediate blackout, was perfect, pushing our satisfaction of the otherwise broadly optimistic ending firmly out of joint.

What I would say is to make sure that some elements are clearer to make sure they land with the required weight: I think if your character is a writer, we need to see more of them writing, or hear what they have written, rather than being told that they want to write. Some clarity on the fact that Alix is regressing back into a dark place might help to explain why Jan feels forced to leave their side for some of the play. This would have helped to really ramp up the stakes and have taken the plot into less familiar territory.

But overall, this was a hugely entertaining, well-paced, well-acted play. I look forward to seeing what else this new company produces in the future - maybe they’ll have a BBC spot in the next few years…

‘Dazzling’ is the second play by writer Holly Sewell and the debut production by new company Fundamental Loose Screw

Runs until 16 December - box office Dazzling — Etcetera Theatre (etceteratheatrecamden.com)
 
 

Reviewed by Jonny Kemp