The theatre is supposed to examine new realms so it is good to see a play tackling the neglected topic of violence against women in women’s relationships, and also a play offering five compelling female roles.
We first see four friends meeting in a wine bar as they used to while at university.
They remember their dreams while young: ‘if we were still single by the time we were thirty we were going to buy a farm and live together and write erotic fiction.’ Soon, however, the old animosities come out. Blake in a little black dress is a beautiful, hard, successful career women played by Violet Grace Fink, who cannot withhold herself from putting the other women down.
She suspects the stories of many ‘so-called victims’, that they are attention-seeking and manipulative. This debate circles round while the friends hear bulletins about a celebrity domestic violence trial currently nearing its end – how they react to the news reflects their own experiences.
As the play progresses the women reveal different types of control and abusive behaviours. Leather-clad goth DJ, played sensitively by Emily Cordell, was never good enough for her parents, they were always putting her down. Blake was gaslighted by her mother about her father’s supposedly bad behaviour, in fact it was her mother who was toxic and who stopped Blake having a relationship with her father for all her childhood. ‘I believed every single word. She lied about everything’ she says, a distortion which has affected her whole life. The stoic, sensible peacemaker Kellie (Katie Hamilton) is a perfect balance, holding it all together.
Most luridly the theme of manipulation here is shown in the loving, controlling and ultimately violent relationship which Brooke suffers from her ‘soul-mate’ the lethally selfish Moira, played with convincing menace by Lottie Bell.
Victoria Broom gives a compelling performance as the besotted, so-in-love young woman turned into the trembling waif who her friends feel they must help. Gradually she is compelled to leave her flat, job, family and friends as the abuse form her girlfriend slowly accelerates into actual violence.
This is a well directed show, using flashbacks which are a tricky manoeuvre in plays but Jade Winters, who wrote and directed the piece, pulls it off here. It is disturbing and relevant.
Playwright: Jade Winters
Cast: Victoria Broom, Lottie Bell, Emily Cordell, Katie Hamilton, Violet Grace Fink
Duration: 60 minutes no interval
Until: 14 March 2026