A darkly funny treat – if you can handle the tension!
Did you read Jennette McCurdy’s acclaimed memoir I’m Glad My Mum Died and think hmm, I wish this was more unhinged? Then boy, do I have a show for you.
Molly Semple’s Good for Her is a twisted thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. As the delightfully narcissistic Iris, she carefully leads the audience on a disturbed descent; you watch as Iris goes from self-involved yet painfully relatable to one of the most complex villains created, as we build to Iris committing an act which she can’t come back from.
In the creation of Iris, Semple has made a character that demands attention. You will be horribly captivated by this creation. Iris is larger than life, and there is real cruelty within her, but as she describes her Instagram stalking, her layered relationship with her overbearing mother and the bleakness of trying to get ahead in the arts without contacts, you can’t help but feel sorry for her. Iris speaks to the worst parts of ourselves, and because of that, even as she gets worse and worse, there’s a real human element to her, that just feels desperately sad.
Good for Her is a one-woman play and Semple, under the wonderful direction of Kayla Stokes, does an incredible job of holding the audience captivated from start to finish with her performance and clever script. The staging is minimal, but the pink set dressing and costuming work brilliantly against the dark content of what unfolds. The red heart-shaped pillow sits always in view and is used just so sparingly you know it’s going to be important, which makes it feel like a twisted Chekov’s Gun.
Semple’s show is funny, but it’s also very comfortable in holding the audience in the uncomfortable, and not breaking for an easy laugh, which makes the show far richer. She uses Iris’s silly yet painfully familiar google searches to punctuate the story to great effect. These nicely take the edge off the darker moments, and break-up the monologues to keep the show nicely paced.
It’s a gripping show from start to end, and makes you think about the cycles we all play out. Can we blame everything on our parents? What do we owe to our caregivers, however flawed they are? Would we all be better people if we just deleted Instagram en mass? Semple has put together a great show here – good for her indeed.
Good for Her runs at The Other Palace until 26th July 2026. Tickets here.