Review: Playfight, Soho Theatre

Julia Grogan’s Playfight is a raw, energetic exploration of female friendship, growing pains, and the blurred lines between consent and coercion. Set over a ten-year span, it follows three girls – Kiera, Lucy, and Zainab – from the chaotic highs and lows of GCSEs, first sexual experiences and the pressure of forging an identity in an unforgiving world. At its core, this is a story about how we try to understand ourselves through the people we grow up with – and how easily that understanding can fracture.

The three actors at the heart of the play are nothing short of phenomenal. Sophie Cox gives Kiera a wild, captivating edge – she’s brash, unfiltered, and often hilarious, but there’s pain beneath the surface. Lucy Mangan brings real depth to the role of Lucy, whose bubbly, Christian persona masks something more complex and possibly repressed. As Zainab, Nina Cassells is sharp and magnetic, portraying a character who is fiercely intelligent and guarded, slowly unraveling as she confronts her feelings for a friend. Each performance feels distinct and lived-in, with strong chemistry that drives the emotional arc of the piece.

Hazel Low’s striking set design – a luminous pink ladder standing in for the girls’ favourite hangout spot, “tree” – offering a powerful visual metaphor for youth, growth, and return. It’s simple, effective, and gives the actors a physical playground to match their emotional one.

Director Emma Callander steers the piece with confidence, keeping the energy high and transitions seamless. The relentless pace at times captures the impulsiveness of adolescence beautifully – but occasionally, that same momentum feels forced, especially early on, and can undercut some of the more emotionally charged moments. A few scenes end abruptly, leaving little time for the weight of what’s just happened to truly sink in.

Still, Playfight stands out for its refusal to offer easy answers. Grogan’s writing is smart, lyrical, and brave – it tackles themes like consent, pornography, societal pressure, and suicide without slipping into a moralistic tone. Instead, it embraces ambiguity, allowing the audience space to question, interpret, and reflect. Was there consent? Are these characters really happy, or are they just performing happiness to protect themselves? These questions linger long after the final blackout.

Interestingly, the show’s episodic structure – quick scenes, moments that flash forward or back, relationships revealed in fragments – feels tailor-made for the screen. There’s a natural fit here for a television adaptation, where the characters and their backstories could be explored in greater depth, and where the emotional beats would have more room to breathe. You can easily imagine Playfight as a powerful coming-of-age series, in the vein of Sex Education.

While not every stylistic choice lands perfectly on stage, Playfight is a bold and thought-provoking piece of theatre, with three exceptional performances at its heart. It captures the joy, mess, fear, and fragility of growing up – and does so with empathy, intelligence, and a fierce sense of authenticity.

Written by: Julia Grogan
Directed by: Emma Callander
Set and Costume Design by: Hazel Low
Produced by: Grace Dickson
Sound design and composed by: Roly Botha
Lighting design by: Kate Bonney

Playfight plays at Soho Theatre until Saturday 26 April.