ComedyFringe TheatreReviews

Review: Totally Fine, The Hope Theatre

Write Club Festival 2025

summary

Rating

Good

Wolff's one-woman show has potential, but - in its current form - misses the emotional bullseye

In this fringy, one-woman comedy, writer and performer Susanna Wolff plays an un-named counsellor who one day finds herself on the client’s side of the therapy room. We don’t know why she has been booked in but we are told – on more than one occasion – that this was not her doing, and that she personally considers the whole thing a bit of an “over-reaction”. 

In the hour that follows, we learn about our protagonist’s profession and how unsatisfying she finds it. The whinging clients, the long hours and lack of work-life boundaries, the stock answers (“that must be very hard“) and the pre-prepared, empathetic “hmmmm”-s that she is paid to provide. Wolff’s character reiterates that she doesn’t need therapy (“obviously I’m fine“) and makes plenty of self-referential comments to assure her therapist that she, more than anyone, understands how frustrating it must be to listen to complaints from a woman who has no ‘real’ reason to be unhappy. “Extra-large Kleenex – you must be good,” Wolff quips, before wryly praising her therapist for an “excellent use of silence“. Occasionally, she picks up her client questionnaire and avoids ticking any boxes that might expose how she’s really feeling. 

Totally Fine reminded me of the therapy scene in Fleabag; both characters sit in therapy sessions they didn’t sign up for and use humour to deflect from emotional vulnerability and analysis. It might be worth saying here that I am fully aware of how frustrating it must be as an actress to have your work constantly measured in Phoebe Waller-Bridge metrics; I only do so now because Fleabag’s successes helpfully highlight what Wolff’s show unfortunately lacks. Unlike Waller-Bridge, Wolff doesn’t quite commit to her mean, neurotic streak, and by neglecting to do so she stops her audience members from connecting with her character at a deeper level. Her jabs at privileged clients (dubbed “soulless Sallies”) are amusing, but also feel overly familiar and safe. Wolff complains that “people just need to shut up“, which piques our imperfect, human interests, but she doesn’t push this statement any further. She wobbles at the brink of the outrageous, and the outrageously relatable, but chooses not to jump. Her performance is similarly teetering; almost great, but not quite. 

That being said, Wolff is notably adept at swinging between accents and characters, adopting a Scottish lilt to portray her favourite client before delivering a knock-out impersonation of her pass-agg receptionist, Linda. She is also impressively unperturbed by the entry of two or three late comers which, in a space as small as The Hope, deserves some props. All this to say that Wolff is clearly a capable actor, but her performance in this show just lacks a bit of authenticity. 

I would like to see Woolff amp things up a notch or two. To push herself, and by extension her audience members, beyond the limits of the comfort zone. The bones of Totally Fine are strong, and there are moments of sensitive observation that suggest there is potential yet to be mined. “It’s too much, and it’s still fuck all” Wolff sobs as her session enters emotionally hairy territory: a simple but affecting description of life in your twenties that touched me at a more promising emotional depth. 

With a slightly spikier script and more developed performance, this show could go to better, bigger places. Entertaining, but, as things currently stand, a little unsatisfying. 


Written and performed by: Susanna Wolff
Directed by: Dean Graham
Produced by: George Turner

Totally Fine has completed its run as part of The Hope Theatre’s Write Club Festival. It will next play at The Hen and Chickens Theatre from 22 February to 1 March. Further information and tickets available here.

Daisy Game

Daisy has recently moved to London after studying and working in beautiful Bristol for 5 years. Whilst trying her acting chops on for size through school and her first year of university, she ended up stumbling off stage and into a life of reviewing - heading up to Edinburgh to write for the Ed Fringe Review back in 2019. Since then, Daisy has written shows up for Epigram and The Bristol Magazine. She’s looking forward to theatre-hopping her way across the capital.

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