Labyrinth Diet

Louise has a wardrobe full of clothes that do not fit. She buys them for her future slimmer self. When she takes some of these items to a clothes-swapping party, she finds it hard to let go, both of her unworn dresses and of the corrosive sense that she is the thing that doesn’t belong.

Part of the Foreword Festival of new writing at The Space, Laura Horton’s play is superb at evoking the hoops through which women make themselves jump to conform, cutting whole food groups out of their diet, squeezing themselves into Spanx, exerting far too much energy worrying about the things they consume, energy that could be better directed elsewhere.

It’s also astute on the insidiousness of privilege and the dismay of discovering that everyone in the arts seemingly went to the same school or has wealthy parents, when you’re not from that world. It’s funny and humane, and alert to the absurdity of being in a room where eating a packet of crisps can feel like a radical act.

Charlotte Everest’s production conveys how exhausting all this can be. Anjelica Serra dashes about the stage, growing increasingly breathless as she inhabits the different women that Louise encounters at the party. The production feels far less careful when exploring Louise’s vulnerability. In a play about women’s body image having Serra strip to underwear feels exposing in an uncomfortable and unhelpful way.

The pacing and delivery of the material is also quite baggy in places, meaning some of the laughs get lost along the way, but the promise and honesty in the play remains undiluted.