Lady Dealer, Bush Theatre Review

Alexa Davies in 'Lady Dealer' at Bush Theatre.  Photo credit Harry Elletson

Written by Franco Milazzo for Theatre & Tonic

Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review.

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Described by writer Martha Watson Allpress as “loneliness and isolation – with jokes!”, Lady Dealer makes its London bow after a critically-acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe last year.

The one-woman drama set in Peckham, East London revolves around Charly (Alexa Davies) and her precarious existence. At best, she dreams of a Groundhog Day-like life - wake, bounce around to the Beastie Boys, answer calls made to either of her two phones, continue her “ethical-ish” business selling weed, eat crap, fall asleep then rinse and repeat - but we meet her in the jaws of a calamity. A local power outage has left her to face her fears in silence and without the dopamine hit of her regular interactions.

Like Allpress’ debut play Patricia Gets Ready (for a Date With the Man That Used to Hit Her), this is not an easy watch. She wrote the play during and inspired by the pandemic lockdowns and her experience in those closeted months is clearly present here. Even if the walls of the dealer’s small flat are invisible, there’s a deep feeling of claustrophobia here - and not just in the physical sense. Amid twin towers of unread books and dirty laundry, the young protagonist rages and rants as she justifies her profession and demands our acceptance (“be happy for me you liberal cunts”) while mentally taunted by dark thoughts. The latter centre on three women: her mum who Charly feels deserved a better daughter, her childhood friend Tegan who gave her a brief and bitter taste of the high life and, most of all, her ex Clo who once shared her flat and has departed, leaving behind only a yellow jumper and a string of fairy lights.

Allpress’ script is delivered as poetry including rhyming couplets which Charly at one point says she will stop “if the rhyming thing gets boring / If I begin to hear hints of snoring.” It’s a tough technique to pull off but - if Richard Marsh’s one-man Die Hard tribute Yippee Ki Yay and Mike Bartlett’s near-future Trump drama The 47th are anything to go by - it is a powerful one that intrigues as much as it entertains. There’s a drum-like beat to repeated mantra-like pleas like “Today is going to be the same” and the obvious lie of “I am fine” that percussively underscore Charly’s fragile state of mind.

Davies’ character work here is outstanding. The Welsh actor has always been something of a chameleon, sporting a Brum accent for Raised By Wolves and here a solid working-class London twang. She gets under the skin of this benighted woman who is trying (and failing) to cope with soul-rending heartbreak on top of epic levels of social anxiety. Emily Aboud’s direction ensures that Davies is perpetually in motion and rarely still unless utterly paralysed by the melancholy thoughts in her head.

Despite only running for 75 minutes, elements of Lady Dealer feel redundant or unfinished. Allpress bangs home over and again Charly’s state of mind; encounters with neighbours, a trip to MacDonalds and a scene with the father of a client all hammer home her unease with other members of the human race. This snapshot of the dealer’s life never shows how she delivers the goods (only a few are allowed up to her flat) or how she procures it, nor how (apart from perhaps nominative determinism) someone who went to a top university ended up in this life. Ultimately, this is an uneven character study that thumps and jumps with real energy and insight.

At Bush Theatre until 15 June 2024.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆