The first job artist Bar­bara Tate had in Soho was in a bar.  Soon she was charmed into work­ing as a maid for Mae,  a ‘glam­orous West End Girl ‘. Ken Dun­cum has adapt­ed Tate’s mem­oir about her time work­ing for a pros­ti­tute in Soho. It’s fun and fizzy in the first half before things turn more seri­ous (and sur­re­al)  in the sec­ond half.

Vic­to­ria Abbott (Bar­bara) plays the tran­si­tion from uncer­tain inno­cent to com­fort­able, con­fi­dent woman with spir­it. Jes­si­ca Robin­son (Mae) pro­vides a con­trast­ing por­trait of a woman ini­tial­ly con­fi­dent in her allure then grad­u­al­ly slid­ing towards being depen­dent on some­one else. These two actors are the strong heart of the play. It is fas­ci­nat­ing to see their rela­tion­ship played out in eye con­tact and small phys­i­cal ges­tures. They are sup­port­ed by a tight-knit ensem­ble who play a mul­ti­tude of char­ac­ters.  Heather O’Car­roll, Gavin Ruther­ford, Bry­ony Skilling­ton, Hay­ley Sproull and Paul Wag­gott whirl around the stage pro­vid­ing Vaude­ville style sound effects, and half seen (yet ful­ly formed) char­ac­ters. Direc­tor David O’Don­nell has obvi­ous­ly worked very hard along­side the cast to help them achieve such a coher­ent per­for­mance.

Design­er Andrew Fos­ter has worked with a recon­fig­ured the­atre space to cre­ate a ver­sa­tile stage. Set pieces are on wheels and are moved around to sug­gest dif­fer­ent spaces. The (many) cos­tumes by Jane Boocock are ele­gant yet sim­ple (and desir­able.)  Light­ing, Mar­cus McShane, and Sound, Gareth Hobbs, have to sup­port a vari­ety of per­for­mance styles which they do.

Tonight (10 August) Cir­ca are throw­ing an indoor street par­ty to accom­pa­ny the per­for­mance.  Sounds like fun — just like this show.