Eyebrows might be raised at the Royal Court staging a play by its own press officer. However, Anoushka Warden’s 75-minute monologue, beautifully performed by Patsy Ferran, stands on its own two feet as a breathtakingly candid account of a teenager’s wounded fury at her mother’s surrender to a spiritual cult. Billed as “an unreliable version of a true story filtered through a hazy memory and vivid imagination”, it runs out of steam towards the end but is sustained by its mix of wit and anger.
The audience sit on beanbags or wooden chairs in the Theatre Upstairs to listen to a character called Girl tell her story – and what an extraordinary one it is. She is brought up by a lovingly attentive mum and is part of a complex extended family. Her happiness is shattered when she acquires a detested Canadian stepfather, exclusively referred to as Moron, and when he and her mum succumb to a group she describes as a cult. For the girl, it is the start of a vain struggle to hang on to a mother she feels has been brainwashed. …show more content…
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lively eyes and animated features … Patsy Ferran. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian
Warden writes excellently about the insidious nature of spiritual cults and the way their adherents twist reality to back up their “batshit crazy beliefs”. There is a wickedly funny study of the cult’s leader, who conceals her power-hunger under a facade of mock piety, and a more bruising account of the mum’s deluded belief that she could get rid of her daughter’s facial scars through spiritual healing. I’d like to have heard more about the cult’s ability to claim its followers’ property as well as their souls, but you feel Warden is driven by a desire for revenge on the spuriously righteous.
Anoushka Warden: ‘My mum just asked if twat was a real
The audience sit on beanbags or wooden chairs in the Theatre Upstairs to listen to a character called Girl tell her story – and what an extraordinary one it is. She is brought up by a lovingly attentive mum and is part of a complex extended family. Her happiness is shattered when she acquires a detested Canadian stepfather, exclusively referred to as Moron, and when he and her mum succumb to a group she describes as a cult. For the girl, it is the start of a vain struggle to hang on to a mother she feels has been brainwashed. …show more content…
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lively eyes and animated features … Patsy Ferran. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian
Warden writes excellently about the insidious nature of spiritual cults and the way their adherents twist reality to back up their “batshit crazy beliefs”. There is a wickedly funny study of the cult’s leader, who conceals her power-hunger under a facade of mock piety, and a more bruising account of the mum’s deluded belief that she could get rid of her daughter’s facial scars through spiritual healing. I’d like to have heard more about the cult’s ability to claim its followers’ property as well as their souls, but you feel Warden is driven by a desire for revenge on the spuriously righteous.
Anoushka Warden: ‘My mum just asked if twat was a real