Review: You're SO F**king Croydon!

Kate Hurley admits that the identity focussed autobiographical solo show is over-represented at the Fringe: while she has a charismatic presence and stories that illustrate her frustrated life progress, F**king Croydon struggles to escape the predictable gravity of the genre. Balanced between the personal and the resonant, the play embraces the telling detail of Croydon’s inertia, but the production is ambivalent about its topic. At times, its landscape and social status is crucial context to Hurley’s ambitions, successes and anguish, yet its meaning to the narrative is left vague. Whether Croydon is a symbol of working-class culture, an unfairly victimised locale or an accident of geography is never quite resolved.

The structure is familiar, however. There is a vivid description of anxiety antics and the slow emotional death of the modern relationship that ends up arguing in the car park of Ikea: there are the delightful memories of hedonistic pleasure that sours through repetition. There is a video screen in the corner that presents memories, news and, finally, an animated David Bowie offering advice. Hurley is an engaging performer, and the show is warm and hopeful, never denies the mistakes or failures, but ultimately expresses an unremarkable and over-familiar dramaturgy.