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Review: The Blair Bitch Project, Old Red Lion Theatre

GrimFest

GrimFest Two friends alone in the woods: Finella Waddilove’s Kitty, has some rather unpleasant things going on down below, while Kathryn Crosby’s Faye is going through a hard time with life in general. It’s already the perfect show for GrimFest – enough to scratch that itch we get during the spooky month – but with a few tweaks it has the potential to be so much more.    The Blair Bitch Project is a charming mix of humour and horror that complement each other, drawing us in and leave us rooting for both women. Away from the horror it’s…

Summary

Rating

Excellent

A fun horror offering that will, with further love and attention, grow into something even more disgustingly fun.

Two friends alone in the woods: Finella Waddilove’s Kitty, has some rather unpleasant things going on down below, while Kathryn Crosby’s Faye is going through a hard time with life in general. It’s already the perfect show for GrimFest – enough to scratch that itch we get during the spooky month – but with a few tweaks it has the potential to be so much more.   

The Blair Bitch Project is a charming mix of humour and horror that complement each other, drawing us in and leave us rooting for both women. Away from the horror it’s a story of friendship and how we can drift apart as we move from childhood to adulthood, life getting in the way of maintaining friendships, however much we try.

Kitty is that friend we all have; unreliable, scatty, self-centred and often the bitch of the title. For Faye she’s “the most panic inducing person I know”. Yet she’s also the friend we care for and wouldn’t want to change too much. Although changing she may as she confesses that she is bleeding heavily down below. And as for the funny smell… let’s not even go there. Although, it is quite refreshing for a show to actually go there, so to speak, giving the whole thing an authentic feel with a very female perspective, even if us men present squirm at all this talk of intimate female anatomy!

Faye is Kitty’s polar opposite; organised, sensible, caring, but full of anxieties and frustration with her friend for turning up (eventually) to their planned camping trip with an almost dead phone but no tent – forgotten on the train. For all their differences, the pair’s performance easily convinces us that they are lifelong friends who have slightly drifted apart of late.

But admit it, we’re not at GrimFest for a sweet tale of female friendship, we’re here for some screams. That horror flows nicely, the tension rising before being released via another dose of humour and female comradeship, only for it to quickly build again. It’s nicely judged to keep the audience guessing when the real scare moments are coming, and what the final payoff is going to be. There are also some lovely Easter eggs thrown in, Waddilove’s entrance certainly stealing openly from The Ring.

But for the show to develop it needs to build further on what already makes it fun. We need their relationship to be further pushed to its limits to see if it can be torn apart and remade in a completely different way as we reach the final moment of pure fear. It’s achievable and it’s Waddilove’s challenge to make it happen. The sound and background noise assist in keeping us unsettled but the lighting is not quite right (tonight a late technician replacement clearly doesn’t help). Even accounting for this, there is more that could be done with it to rake up the tension. The show is set in the woods, so it should be full of shadows and dark corners for us to imagine further horrors lurking close by, whilst there is a need to find a way to present the ending for maximum impact. But this will come with time and support.

The Blair Bitch Project is already a great horror show just waiting to burst out of its… well I’m too polite to say quite where it might burst out from, but I can’t wait for an invite to see it again once Waddilove has had time to refine it further.


Written and directed by: Finella Waddilove

The Blair Bitch Project has finished its current run for GrimFest at Old Red Lion Theatre.

About Rob Warren

Someone once described Rob as "the left leaning arm of Everything Theatre" and it's a description he proudly accepted. It is also a description that explains many of his play choices, as he is most likely to be found at plays that try to say something about society. Willing though to give most things a watch, with the exception of anything immersive - he prefers to sit quietly at the back watching than taking part!