Veron­i­ca Lake was a film star in the 1940s. She was a tiny, sexy blonde. Her hair was styled to fall art­ful­ly over her face con­ceal­ing one eye. She lived her life in a sim­i­lar man­ner – chang­ing her sto­ry to suit the mood she was in at the time. Drown­ing in Veron­i­ca Lake is a stylised telling of her sto­ry.

Alex Ellis solos in this show. She is con­fined to one place  by her cos­tume. It is a fit­ted white dress that spreads around her, fill­ing up the stage. Her phys­i­cal move­ments are restrict­ed to bend­ing and pos­ing. This is bal­anced by her excel­lent voice work. Ellis has a won­der­ful old Hol­ly­wood accent which sub­tly changes as the char­ac­ter slips into drunk­en­ness. She is helped by the light­ing design which helps her embody dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters. (Play­wright Phil Orms­by oper­ates the lights as well.)

It’s an intrigu­ing piece about the cost (not the price) of celebri­ty.