★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Reviewer - Joseph

Maisie is 9. She is bouncy, full of beans, and for her life is pretty much just one big performance. She’s a playwright, an artist, an author, and a rock star, but where she lives there are rules, and sometimes that makes life tricky. Get ready for original poetry, hardcore gymnastics and even an Avril Lavigne tribute act. This is Maisie’s time to shine – she’s not going to let an eating disorder get in the way.

Due to the subject matter, you would expect “Scruffy” a piece of fresh writing from Sugar Theatre Company to be heavy. But it is surprisingly light. There are times where the darkness creeps in, much like Maisie’s struggle, but even that is dealt with a tenderness that is heart-warming,

Rosie Hollingworth manages to do what few can in theatre, and expertly play both sides of the same coin. She embodies Maisie in a way that relaxes the audience instantly, displaying both innocence and insolence in equal measure to bring the audience into her world.

The staging was simple, after all this is fringe, but it was enough to help us to connect the dots about who Maisie really was. Her journey is something that I feel is so important in today’s society, not just in content, but in the way it is handled, the direction has clearly placed Maisie in this world as someone to champion young people that struggle with these. Often marginalised as outsiders do not understand that their actions are not through choice, whatever the reasoning, we’re fully on Maisie’s side.

The production does well to not be overly emotional, and risk becoming a depressing over egged pudding about the dangers of eating disorders, providing realistic hope in this situation is the catharsis that not only we as an audience need when leaving her world behind, but I feel that children who are going through this time in their life need. A little bit of hope. The belief that it isn’t always going to be like this. It doesn’t have to be much. Sometimes the only hope we need is a KitKat Chunky.

You can catch ‘Scruffy’ at Camden Fringe in August.

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