Review: Good Girl, Gilded Balloon Patter House

As we wait on the stairs to head into the small upstairs Blether space at Gilded Balloon Patter House, the usher asks for women only to sit on the front row. It might not have been the original reason this decision was made, but as we get deeper into Mimi Collins’ Good Girl this move creates solidarity between performer and the front row. A sisterhood to support her as she reveals all to the audience about her hidden life, one kept from watching eyes for so long and yet now being put out to the world as a way to reclaim her life in the only way she knows; through theatre.

The story, told directly to the audience as if a confession, charts the breakdown of her marriage, while at the same time sees her turn towards an unlikely source for the support and strength she needs to finally break free. It begins quite bluntly, leaving little doubt what is going on as she purrs and preens like a little girl as she speaks to an online presence, calling him ‘Daddy’, a clear sign that their relationship is a BDSM one.

From here she takes us back to how this point was reached; her husband’s infidelity, and an endless trail of lies and false promises. And as all this is happening, she slowly descends deeper into another strange world, one sparked into existence by the posting of a self-nude, an act of defiance against her cheating husband even as she forgives him each time there’s a new revelation. Yet this other world, the one where she is a submissive, is the one that is empowering, one that makes her feel alive and more in control than she is in the real world. It’s a control that is supported by both her online BDSM community as well as those women filling the front row as we watch.

There is a tightness in Collins’ script that belies the rapid development of this play; a final draft was only completed at the start of the year and then performed at Hollywood Fringe a few months later before heading directly to Edinburgh. Yet it feels already complete, every word has meaning, nothing is said simply to fill a space. In fact, even the spaces left when her words fall away feel perfectly considered, no need to say more as she allows the audience to complete her thoughts for her. Her performance matches those words, her pain and anguish are palatable, when she talks about how she knows she should “leave after the first lie, or it gets harder to leave after the second, the third the fourth, the…” you see a woman desperate to forgive, to move on and yet seeming to know she is allowing herself to be deceived yet again.

Good Girl is stunning in its honesty and frankness. Knowing Collins through her work with Bespoke Plays also means at times it can be a tough watch, as you realise how much of her true self she is presenting to us in such a raw state. But ultimately seeing her retake control of her life, through the most unlikely of means, is uplifting. Theatre as a form of therapy has a lot to say for itself.

Written by Mimi Collins

Directed by Ellie Pyle

Produced by Bespoke Plays

Good Girl plays at Gilded Balloon Patter House until Monday 31 August as part of EdFringe.