Tag Archives: Emma Pritchard

Armour

Armour
★★★★

VAULT Festival

Armour

Armour

The Vaults

Reviewed – 15th February 2019

★★★★

 

“She has brilliant comic timing, delivering throwaway lines with deadpan naivety”

 

The lives of teenage girls are prime material for writers. But, try as they might, thirty-nine-year-old Michael and fifty-year-old Carol can’t quite capture what it really means to be a teenager in the 21st century. Unlike most, writer/performer Emma Pritchard has an innate understanding of how young women think and feel. With its blend of empathy, urgency, and humour, her play Armour captures their complexity perfectly.

Fourteen-year-old Susie has been abandoned. First it was her dad, who left and took the freezer with him. Then it was her sister, Jess, who moved in with her weird boyfriend. Finally, it was her sense of security. She’s the new girl in a Catholic school where everyone seems superficial; though shy, she is desperate to impress and will go to any lengths to do so. But Susie’s a strong girl, and she copes pretty well – until disaster strikes. Her mum gets a perm.

Pritchard has created a remarkably authentic teenage voice. Susie is intelligent and, at times, poetic, but never pretentious. She thinks of her sister, not while staring wistfully at the stars, but while waiting for her tea to cool down. Attention from a boy leaves her ‘glowing inside like a microwave’. Pritchard is not blinded by the need to impress with clever writing; she is committed to telling this story as honestly as possible. Ironically, this makes the play cleverer and more insightful than it could have hoped to have been otherwise.

As a performer, she illuminates the many sides of Susie’s personality with equal care and attention. She has brilliant comic timing, delivering throwaway lines with deadpan naivety. As the story develops, this same naivety is used to evoke sympathy for Susie as she falls deeper into the trap of her own lies. Pritchard eschews frantic stage pacing and broad gestures, resulting in a consistently controlled and believable performance. Many scenes take place on a yellow changing room bench, her school bag and hockey gear resting against it. It serves as a reminder that this is the story of an innocent young woman who, despite her abundant strength, should not have to use it.

Armour is a play that has been brought to life with great care and attention. Its wit and honesty make it both a highly watchable piece of theatre and a moving portrait of teenage life in all its tragicomedy.

 

Reviewed by Harriet Corke

 

Vault Festival 2019

Armour

Part of VAULT Festival 2019

 

 

 

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com

 

SPLIT

★★★★★

VAULT Festival 2018

Split

Split

Network Theatre

Reviewed – 4th March 2018

★★★★★

“holds a mirror up to every woman in the audience and leaves them raucously laughing”

 

Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. David Mitchell and Robert Webb. It’s no secret that two is the magic number when it comes to comedy and, after last night’s performance of ‘Split’ at the VAULT Festival, it strikes me that Emma Pritchard and Tamar Broadbent could well be next to join that list.

‘Split’ is a hilariously riotous cringeworthy comedy about two side-splittingly relatable young women. Ellie and Charlotte meet on the first day of Year 7. It must be fate. Well, either fate or the fact that their surnames both start with a J. As so many do, they click almost instantly, and over the course of the next hour we’re allowed the privilege of seeing them navigate their way through their youth. Scene after scene has the audience nudging the best friend who is sat beside them with whispers of “That’s you!” or “Do you remember when…?”. Blissfully ignorant to the realities of adulthood, the two best friends stumble through the traumas of boyfriends, bad decisions and the loss of Charlotte’s pet cat Bach. One of the most memorable things about the piece is its oh-so-classic soundtrack of boy band hits from the beginning of the millennium, along with a dance mat duet which conjured more focus and higher stakes than anything else.

However, ‘Split’ does more than make you reminisce fondly over Busted albums and smelly gel pens. It reminds you of the value and resilience of female friendships. It forces you to remember the people who raised you; the people who sat beside you in assembly and the people who snuck you out of dodgy house parties via the bedroom window. ‘Split’ holds a mirror up to every woman in the audience and leaves them raucously laughing at the nostalgic embarrassments of their early teenage years; but also smiling at how timeless the relationships from that part of your life can be.

 

Reviewed by Sydney Austin

 


Split

Network Theatre

 

 

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com