“Women can’t box? You watch.” Jodie Campbell (BBC’s Boarders) stars in a one-woman show about love, family and smashing society’s expectations. We sat down with her for a quick chat about her latest project, Bitch Boxes.
Bitch Boxer is a one-woman show that sits at the intersection of grief, girlhood, and systemic exclusion. How did you approach holding all those emotional registers alone on stage, and what surprised you most about that responsibility as a performer?
With grief being a main thread that carries the play through its highs and lows, it was definitely important for me to manage the complexities of it. Holding all those emotional registers meant trusting that they could coexist without being separated. Grief doesn’t arrive politely, and neither does ambition or girlhood, they bleed into each other. Being alone on stage actually helped that, because there was nowhere to hide or soften the edges. Chloe is strong, funny, messy, guarded, and vulnerable all at once, and I wanted the audience to feel that contradiction rather than have it explained to them. What surprised me most was how much the physical work (boxing) anchored everything emotionally. When the body is working that hard, there’s no space to perform emotion in a fake way. The honesty comes for free.
Chloe is preparing for the 2012 Olympic qualifiers—the first year women are allowed to compete in boxing—while simultaneously processing the loss of her father. How did you navigate the tension between discipline, ambition, and vulnerability in her journey?
For me, I think that Chloe’s discipline is the thing that allows her vulnerability to exist. Boxing gives her structure, control, and purpose at a time when grief has taken all of that away. She’s preparing for something historic, the first year women can compete in Olympic boxing however she’s also a daughter navigating loss, and those two things are constantly pulling against each other. I approached that tension by never treating her ambition as emotional avoidance. Boxing isn’t what helps her suppress pain; it’s how she survives it. There’s something really powerful about watching someone keep showing up to training while their heart is breaking silently. That felt very human to me. Her vulnerability often slips through in moments of exhaustion or failure, when discipline can’t hold everything together anymore.
The play asks whether strength comes from suppressing pain or allowing oneself to be seen as fragile. As an actor, where did you locate Chloe’s strength—and did that understanding shift during rehearsals or performances?
I was lucky to have a brilliant director (Prime Isaac) who really helped me find my character’s strength and in rehearsals we were constantly sharing ideas and we ultimately located Chloe’s strength in her willingness to keep going. At the start, I thought strength might live in her physicality — the boxing skill, the endurance, the resilience — and that’s definitely part of it. But through rehearsals and performances, that understanding slightly shifted. Her real strength is arguably emotional honesty. She doesn’t always articulate her grief perfectly, and she doesn’t wrap it up in something palatable, but she doesn’t deny it either. The play asks whether strength is suppression or exposure, and I think Chloe answers that by existing as both. Yes she is definitely guarded, but she’s not numb. She’s tough, but she’s not closed off. Especially as a Black queer woman who’s rarely centred it’s radical. That’s where her power really is.
This production has been described as “messy and brave,” and your performance praised for its intimacy and immediacy. How do you build that sense of direct connection with an audience, especially in a solo piece where there’s nowhere to hide?
I have to credit Charlie Josephine firstly as their scripted ultimately allowed this connection to exist. Because it’s a solo piece, I kind of see the audience as Chloe’s sparring partner. I build that connection by talking with them, not at them. There’s an immediacy to Charlie’s writing that invites honesty, and I try to meet that with presence rather than performance. I’ve learned that you can’t hide in a one-woman show! If you’re disconnected, everyone feels it including me as a performer – so I try and stay as grounded and relatable as possible . The messiness people talk about I think comes from allowing moments to land without smoothing them out. Sometimes silence does the work. Sometimes humour cracks things open especially with Chloe Jackson as a character being so naturally funny.
Having moved from television work like Boarders into your theatre debut with Bitch Boxer, what did live performance demand of you that screen acting doesn’t—and what do you feel it unlocked in your craft?
With the rest of my work being in TV, it was so important for me to do theatre. It was a conversation I remember having with my agent when I signed with them – I really wanted to learn the ways of the stage. Live performance definitely demanded a different kind of stamina whether that be emotional, physical, and mental. In television, you can cut, reset and take breaks to figure something out. On stage however you have to carry the full arc every single night, in real time. I felt that the pressure was on, especially as a stage debut and a one-woman show, but also incredibly rewarding. Theatre I would say unlocked a deeper trust in my instincts. I had to listen to my body, my breath and the audience as everything is alive and responsive. It reminded me why I wanted to do stage work in the first place. It’s immediate, communal, and unforgiving in the best way. I feel like it sharpened my craft and expanded my confidence. It met me at exactly the right point in my career.
Bitch Boxer is rooted in a specific historical moment but speaks to ongoing questions about gender, access, and resilience. What do you hope audiences—particularly young women—carry with them after watching Chloe step into the ring?
I hope audiences, especially young women, leave feeling like there’s no single way to be strong. Chloe shows that you can be ambitious and grieving, disciplined and messy, scared and still moving forward. The play is rooted in a very specific historical moment, when women were finally allowed to box at the Olympics, but the questions it asks about access, visibility, and resilience are still so relevant. I want people to see a Black queer woman centred, winning, struggling, and surviving without apology. If someone leaves feeling more permission to take up space, to pursue their passion, or to be seen fully even when they’re not “perfect” — then the play has done its job. Chloe stepping into the ring is about claiming that space, and inviting others to do the same.