Alice Lamb is a powerhouse in this one-hour solo performance about Andrea, a woman who immerses herself in sex to stop herself from thinking. Sam Potter’s story is funny, fast-paced and often unexpected, and combined with Lamb’s confident connection to the audience, Andrea feels relatable – like someone you’d want to be around even as her inner anguish unleashes anger, self-destruction, and desperation.
We meet Andrea straight after she has been asked to leave her job, having been bought off with a redundancy package. It’s unclear exactly what’s happened but we’re glad she’s out of there, and with her new-found free time and enough money to keep her afloat, she starts dating. Initially finding the Tinder world a boring but addictive carousel of similar-looking men, she eventually meets Rocco who takes her to her first sex party. The Unicorn follows her in and out of houses, cars, luxurious roof-top venues and into playrooms with people who can’t get enough of her. Despite Andrea’s sense of vulnerability, the play still feels liberating. Charting her deepening self-knowledge of what she likes sexually, Andrea works through her own judgement as well as that of others to become defiant, and powerfully curious about her own wants. It’s interesting that that still feels rare, and it was affirming to see. As Andrea blazes forward she comes closer to understanding what drives her longing to be completely enveloped, and her encounter with a stranger in Vauxhall helps her articulate what had previously been unsayable.
Tom Brennan’s direction brings so much to the play. He has kept it very simple, with just a red shag rug on the floor and a microphone, but I was amazed by the pictures created on stage. Lamb guides us through a whole world of new places, and the images she shows us feel completely clear – something that is made so much richer by Jack Drewry’s sound design, which brings her body and the sound of its blood and skin so close to the surface.
Watching The Unicorn felt like being treated to a story told really well by an accomplished team who know how to make a one-handed performance fill the room and people the stage. I loved the journey Andrea goes on, and the way it places solo exploration so close to loneliness, highlighting the slightness of the distance between the two experiences. I think overall I found her exploration outwards more compelling than the uncovering of the trauma that ran beneath, and I’d have been interested in what could have been explored without the sense of needing a buried sadness beneath her sexuality. However, I think the play celebrates the human ability to connect, to find ways to understand our own feelings, and that really fascinating wordless experience we have through our bodies rather than our minds. I’d definitely recommend seeing it.