Fruitcake, by Dulcie Johnson and Tilly Paisner.
🍷🍷🍷🍷 – 4 out of 5 glasses of student wine! And one Orange Juice to cherish! 🍷
Cherish The Orange at Theatre at The Tabard. And Edinburgh Fringe in August 2025. Produced by Alice Fenton.
Phoebe Taylor, Honey Gawn-Hopkins, Hattie Millard, Emma Morgan and Lily Sutcliffe.
On paper, the notion of a bunch of young women, all at University, all forced to stay together in one flat due to Covid, could be a very obvious show. But my expectations were delightfully exceeded by Fruitcake! For this, brilliantly, is a story about real friendship. Young female friends. But friendship. The format is clever too.
May, Bea, Stella, Alice and Freya are flatmates in their last year of university, suddenly flung into close proximity by the Covid Pandemic. They all have very different personalities and we get to see these through the clever use of soliloquies, each character sharing their wants and worries. Two of the friends are trying to write Slam Poetry, using the only people they are allowed to see – their flatmates – as inspiration.
The glory of this piece is its ordinariness! It feels like a real slice of life. The characters are all glorious. They are friends, so, for example, when one of the girls has a boyfriend for the first time, the problem isn’t about anything more than the fact her friends miss her company and a couple of them feel slightly jealous of the time she spends with him. And then others defend her, so she doesn’t feel bad about it! And when one of the friends goes against the Covid rules and goes out more than she should, another friend thinks she can’t cope with this and talks about moving back home. Potentially ‘losing’ one of the gang becomes a real issue for the whole group.
Other highlights including their dancing. They do it only occasionally, but brilliantly!
This was only a workshop event, but there are few stories told about ‘regular’ women. All the performances are strong and the pace never drops or becomes self-indulgent. Once the cast have more time with their characters, I think this will be a must-see, slice of life production. They are at the Edinburgh Fringe next. Go see it. You’ll soon see the benefits of becoming one of their friends.
Edinburgh Fringe…. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/fruitcake
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