White Girls is one of the earlier shows of the day and well worth setting your alarm clock to make sure you go.
The show tells the tale of naive voluntourism within the Calais Jungle refugee camp. This could have turned into a political rant at the incompetence and uselessness of global governments.
It wasn’t, the writer and director, Madeleine Accalia, with ease successfully uses comedy theatre as a medium to deliver a study of personal responsibility towards refugees.
It explores the enormity of the problem by personalising it through the eyes of two young middle class women ‘doing their bit’ types.
To remind you that this is a serious issue that deserves our individual and collective attention the comedic lines are interspersed with blunt and personalised stories of immigrants.
The actors, Francesca Bloor and Valerie Smith pull of this difficult mix of comedy and seriousness well.
Speaking to the cast afterwards I learnt that the two actors are recent graduates of UEA in English and Drama, believe it or not specialising in back tage, perhaps they should consider a career front stage.
I was equally surprised to find out that Madeleine Accalia is young, 22 in fact. I advise keeping an eye out for Accalia in the future, to produce this difficult mix of comedy and seriousness with this level of skill is an achievement for any playwright.
White Girls, Gilded Balloon Turret, Gilded Balloon, 11am
[review rating=”3″ align = “left”]
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