Review: YOU’RE SO SPECIAL, Soho Theatre
Photo credit: Alex Brenner
Julia Grogan’s one-woman show You’re So Special is both literally and emotionally exposing from the get-go. Thematically, it explores what happens to the not-quite-talented-enough when the spotlight is the only thing that will satisfy. Practically, it follows Miss June, who teaches baby ballet in the town she grew up in. The play opens upon the news all performers dream of: she might just have got her big break in a TV show. She’s finally getting out! Or is she? A change in circumstance means that soon the most important thing for Miss June is the end of term “sharing”, meaning she has six weeks to get the toddlers she teaches to learn a showcase that might be, in her mind, her last shot at stardom.
The script is the strength of the play: bittersweet and original, surprising while still sounding naturalistic, and funny until it's a little heartbreaking. Grogan’s pantomiming of wrangling 2-year-olds reliably pulled laughs from the audience, and her physicality never let the stage seem empty. The performance comes across as a desperate demand for attention in a way that feels fitting. The dense, disheartening centre of a play about self-delusion and fame is well-balanced with its pleasingly unusual premise.
Anisha Fields’ set is all baby blues and bubblegum pinks, swathing Grogan in a childish dream she can’t escape from. The set is sparse other than a floating bathroom mirror, hanging liminal and glowing in one corner, occasionally in the way of Grogan’s movement, but giving her somewhere to put props that feels natural. Han Sayles’ lighting is concise and unexpected for a show of this nature, throwing harsh spotlights and sickly greens in amongst the blue and pink, turning the fuzzy carpet that covers the stage sour. George Dennis mixes James Corden interviews and Vogue Youtube features together to create a glitchy cacophony, which taunts Miss June more and more as she begins to lose herself in her dream. Aline David’s movement direction allows us glimpses of the performer Miss June might have been one day, while stripping away the glow of the footlights to reveal a harsher, sadder truth behind her delusions.
The piece feels a little slow in parts, as if the script could lose ten minutes to keep the manic energy of Miss June reflected more thoroughly in the pacing. It would have been interesting, also, to see the conclusion pushed even further into the absurd or the disturbing. Overall however, it is a funny, reflective hour-and-a-bit that keeps its spirits up despite the increasing feeling that it’s all a bit too late for Miss June.
Despite everything, this play is quite special!
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Oli Burgin
You’re So Special plays at London’s Soho Theatre until 26 Sept, with further info here.
