Review: Extra Dry, Greenside @ Riddles Court

Sometimes a first line tells you everything you need to know about a show. So in Extra Dry when Michelle Renee Johnson slides up to the microphone and asks “Have you ever pissed yourself and not realised until the next day?” it’s pretty certain this is going to get messy. 

Over the next 50 minutes she reveals a story of drinking, blackouts and having to piece together just what she would get up to when the two happened. Her reason for drinking in the first place? A sense that without booze she is just a bit boring, yet with it she is a much more interesting person. A person who others want to be around as well. In a way her addiction is not the booze, it’s the validation; “The attention feels good, it’s addictive” she even tells us. But the story is also about how she got through it, made possible by those around her who ensured she never went too far. “So many people carried me over the years” refers not just to that support network but also those who actually physically carried her; up stairs, in and out of taxis, out of bars!

As is so often the case with autobiographical shows, you are never totally sure how much is real and how much is exaggerated for artistic licence. Yet here everything Johnson confesses sounds honest, nothing that an alcoholic would not have experienced. It’s that feeling this is 100% truth that gives the show its power.

Lila Rachel Becker’s direction aids massively. Johnson moves around the large bar that dominates the stage, often moving the gun bottle around. More often than is healthy she finds herself laid flat on the bar as it becomes both a hospital bed and the bed of the strangers she wakes up with, no idea how she got there or what might have happened.

What’s also powerful is how Extra Dry never preaches directly. At no time does Johnson come out and admit the drinking was a problem or that it was dangerous. In some ways she glorifies it, even dubbing the show her “love letter to alcohol”. Yet it’s in this approach that it works even better, the story enough of a warning without a need to paint it in black and white.  

Johnson is a natural storyteller, making it hard to fathom how she could have thought herself a bore when sober. Her story is a great ode to the struggles with addiction, and a warning to anyone who might feel the same.

Written by Michelle Renee Johnson
Co-created and directed by Lila Rachel Becker
Scenic design by Patti Panyakaew
Sound design by Ryan Gamblin
Lighting design by Rebecca Mahar
Costume design by Maeve Rose
Produced by A/Park Productions

Extra Dry has completed its run at EdFringe.