★★★★

“The story of her journey makes for a tender and funny insight into life”

Rosie’s Brain is contained in the head of singer-actor Evelyn Rose – although not without spillage. The ill-disciplined grey matter causes its owner-operator no end of bother – from facial twitches and dark thoughts about crushing babies, to her dealings with men.

Ahh, men. Her Mount Everest.

The musical of Rosie’s Brain was born during Covid. American Evelyn Rose found herself alone, wrestling with her conditions and a recent heartbreak. She threw herself into all manner of distractions, from yoga to dance, but was struck with a plan to mix her experiences of anxiety and OCD with her ear for a melody and her undoubted talent as a singer-songwriter.

She reached for a book How Musicals Work, gathered some like-minded fellow graduates from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and created a show that yearns to give her an easier life, but which profits creatively from the excruciating torments and social awkwardness that afflict her at every turn.

We meet Rosie, her alter-ego, in a floral onesie and chirpy backpack at just such a moment of crisis. (Spoiler alert – every moment is a moment of crisis.) First day of college and some clueless lad glances over.

Within two minutes, her brain has played out her life – they’ve met, dated, she’s made a terrible decision and now she’s trapped in a loveless marriage with a child on her knee. Best take a different route to class and avoid the calamity.

From there, puckish Rosie relays the deluge of anxieties that have accompanied her throughout her life – obsessive bath submersion, her chronic need to confess to a litany of non-crimes and, of course, boys.

With her twitches and that thing she does with her hands, it’s going to be tough out there.

One of her three therapists suggests confronting her anxieties head-on, so she throws herself into the world of saying yes. Which brings her to George, her first true love, who also has OCD. That’s a recipe for mutual understanding or chaos depending on the mood or appetites of the condition she calls the “freakin’ monster upstairs”.

It goes well. Then it doesn’t.

The story of her journey makes for a tender and funny insight into life coming to terms with a self-sabotaging mind. Into the mix, Rose throws some flowery and delicate songs accompanied by guitar and keyboard.

This sweet and uplifting snippet reminds us that quirks come in all shapes and flavours, and we’re all afflicted in different ways which only goes to show, ironically, that we’re not so very different after all.

Great fretwork.

ROB AUTON: THE EYES OPEN AND SHUT SHOW

Soho Theatre

★★★½

“Auton – with the soul of a poet – is funny, self-deprecating, eager to please and brimful of hope”

Genial optimist and shaman-in-a-suit Rob Auton asks us to close our eyes at the opening of his set. For a while we sit in the dark. He asks, have we ever worn trainers that fit as snugly as our eyes in their sockets?

Ironically – for we are briefly blind – he then invites us to see life as he does: full of wonder and curiosity and moments of accidental scintillation.

For the next hour, the comedian conjures worlds where the advice on the side of a washing up liquid bottle – leave the dirtiest dishes till last to keep the water cleaner for longer – is evidence of universal kindness.

He shambles around on stage, a self-confessed hopeless mic-wrangler, appearing like “Harry Styles, only old and depressed”. He has long hair and a beard, like Jesus, which is good for a gag or two.

The ultimate shuteye is death, of course. He reflects on a visit to Heptonstall cemetery where Sylvia Plath is buried (“that’s the kind of stag do’s I get invited to”). He notes how the poet’s fans have left pens and pencils on her headstone. He admires a life that could inspire such affection.

But thinking further, he asks whether he’d swap places – dead with headstone pens or alive with pen in hand.

Alive, he believes, always alive. And what follows is an aching entreaty to the living from all those buried alongside Sylvia Plath, each yearning to return to old hobbies now denied them. Auton is not above moving sincerity in between the cute gags. Indeed, that’s his act.

But then he’s back to life’s oddities. Take blinking. He conjures a parallel world where everything is the same except people make a clucking noise when they blink.

He shambles through his set, delightfully capricious. He swears there’s a script, but he sounds like a wacky dad looking out the car window making on-the-fly observations to entertain bored kids. These thoughts often coalesce into what one might recognise as a joke, other times not so much. (Punchlines are not a priority, he declares early on). There is a fuzzy Work In Progress feel for which his charm mostly, if not entirely, compensates.

This is a funny and surprisingly touching tribute to life as a slender moment of awareness packed with opportunity. We leave the theatre high on his hippyish zeal and optimism.

The show has yet to find its full potential. But in the meantime, Auton – with the soul of a poet – is funny, self-deprecating, eager to please and brimful of hope. The winter chill is thawed by his sunny rays.

ROSIE’S BRAIN

Hope Theatre

★★★★

“The story of her journey makes for a tender and funny insight into life”

ROSIE’S BRAIN

Hope Theatre

Reviewed on 5th February 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Previously reviewed at this venue:

ROSIE’S BRAIN

ROSIE’S BRAIN

ROSIE’S BRAIN

ROB AUTON: THE EYES OPEN AND SHUT SHOW

Soho Theatre

★★★½

“Auton – with the soul of a poet – is funny, self-deprecating, eager to please and brimful of hope”