Whip-smart comedy about weaponised incompetence is an innovative take on a one-woman play.
It’s a tale as old as time. New relationship: could this be The One? The honeymoon phase. Moving in together. Buying your own furniture, cooking your meals together…except the fresh IKEA sets are starting to go unbuilt. Dishes in the sink. Countless “I’ll do it later”s. ‘Clean Slate’ depicts with unflinching detail a relationship burdened with the 21st century man’s greatest vice: weaponised incompetence. And you’re playing the useless boyfriend in question.
‘Clean Slate’, the brainchild of Louisa Marshall and Amber Charlie Conroy took the Edinburgh Fringe Festival by storm this August, and now it’s back for a fresh run at the Pleasance Theatre in London. This run is somehow bigger, smarter, and even more dynamic. Everything about the production rises to the occasion of this new venue. It’s slick, from designer Ali Hagan’s shiny yellow kitchen island to Marshall and Conroy’s effervescent script. At the beating heart of it all is Marshall’s prowess as a performer — instantly likeable, with boundless, frenetic energy and a comedic ease that is totally charming. The space is hers, and she’s comfortable in it; after all, she’s invited you into her flat, the least you can do is help her clean it. It’s quite a feat to improvise off a new audience each night, but her generosity as a performer has even the most reticent spectators getting involved, often to hilarious effect. It’s dynamic. Audience members are invited to flirt with her, dance with her, load a dishwasher and play a couples therapist. A lot of the humour comes from the audiences’ lack of knowledge, cleverly engineered to make us complicit in all the boyfriends’ shortcomings whilst we simultaneously roll our eyes. It’s unlike any audience participation I’ve seen before.
For as funny as it is, ‘Clean Slate’ also seethes. Marshall harnesses a glowing rage that simmers just beneath the surface for the entirety of the play, an impressive feat of self restraint. By the end, we are exhausted as she is, having witnessed the death of a relationship by a thousand cuts. We’ve been hit over the head with relationship issue plays, and indeed one-woman fringe shows for years now, but none tackle such a familiar problem in such an intelligent and thought-provoking way. As her final act, Marshall invites the audience to don rubber gloves and detergent and clean the set, then promptly leaves us to it. Her absence gapes, and you can’t help but realise you’re setting this up for this all to happen again — another boyfriend, another relationship, another unbuilt IKEA flatpack.
‘Clean Slate’ runs from the 11th to the 14th of March at the Pleasance Theatre.