Torch

Phoebe Eclair-Powell's high-octane one-person play is bursting with millennial angst. A woman approaching her thirties contemplates the meaning of it all from a nightclub toilet, where she reflects on the fallout of her sexually liberated young life.

Torch is performed by Backstage in Biscuit Land’s Jess Mabel Jones, who makes for an amiable and energetic host – a vision in glitter and Spandex. But it’s difficult to work up any real empathy for her character due largely to the fact that we’ve heard her story a thousand times before. From her teenage awakening to her string of one-night stands and dodgy boyfriends, the tales are all too familiar. 

Spirited covers of pop songs ranging from Nirvana to Taylor Swift certainly lend colour to proceedings; a hell-raising version of ‘Chandelier’ rightly brings the house down. But off-the-shelf backing tracks only serve to make them feel like karaoke. Imagine if your female colleague who does a decent Katy Perry cover at the office Christmas party regaled you with her entire sexual history, and you’ve pretty much got the measure of Torch.

The climactic scenes, as our heroine’s lascivious ways give way to the yearning for normality, are certainly affecting. Eclair-Powell makes some perceptive observations about female body image and its connection to promiscuity, painting a damning picture of modern masculinity in the process. But otherwise this is pretty unremarkable stuff from a writer and performer clearly brimming with the potential for better things.