Dark Vanilla Jungle

With any new play by Philip Ridley, one of the forces behind the confrontational style known as In-Yer-Face Theatre, you expect sledgehammer blows. Yet Dark Vanilla Jungle, a one-woman play told in monologue, begins with a solitary girl talking about eating ice-cream with her mum, watching herons, and wasp stings.

By the end however, the bucolic opening gives way to a play that rips back the skin and twangs your nerve endings like a macabre guitar.

This is the story of Andrea, a 15-year-old who is damaged, damaged and damaged again, until only rubble remains.

She is abandoned by her parents, groomed by a group of cocktail-wielding older men and eventually led to a grimy council flat full of mattresses. As her mental state is shredded, she fixates upon a mute, limbless soldier and convinces his family she is his girlfriend.

Ridley’s script and Gemma Whelan’s performance leave telling, horrible gaps in the story. It is only fitfully explicit. And as Andrea moves from being a naive victim to broken agent, the creeping sense of unease visibly shifts the room.

Whelan’s performance is one of the most powerful you will see this festival. She talks with the careering force of a teenager. The momentary bursts of rage run on hot tears and phlegm.

Andrea just wants a home and a family. But all those who offer it to her betray her. There is no love here. Only brokenness. Her quest leaves a deeply uncompromising and uncomfortable play that is as striking and memorable as a first wasp sting.