The Girl Who Fell @ Trafalgar Studios

★★★★★

A poignant and darkly funny play about loss, guilt and snapchat

15-year old teenager Sam’s dead.

After some social media foolishness.

And everyone says it’s her mum’s fault.

Thea, a prison chaplain, is grieving the death of her 15-year old daughter Sam, who committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. She blames herself for this tragedy, along with most people in town, and even the police are investigating her role in the tragic death. Thea has done something she will always regret, but she did it with the best of intentions and she never thought for a second it would lead to Sam taking her own life.

Thea is barely holding it together, wrecked with guilt and desperate to understand what Sam went through (“It seems wrong that she experienced something so huge without me. Like if your kids had sex before you did.”).

Sam was your typical teenager, no longer a child, but not yet an adult, who misbehaved online, and her mother wanted to teach her a lesson. A lesson that quickly went out of control and, in the aftermath of Sam’s death, changed the life of those nearest and dearest to her forever.

Sam’s best friend Billie and her twin brother Lennie, who was Sam’s boyfriend, have their own ways of dealing with the loss of their friend and the secrets they keep from Thea and even from each other.

And then there is Gil, the handsome doctor, who suddenly appears in Thea’s life and seems to be a way back to normality, but is he? Should she let her guard down and let him into her life?

Walls are being dismantled in The Girl Who Fell, both literally and metaphorically.

Claire Goose is excellent in the role of Thea, vulnerable, angry, sad, unpredictable, funny and hopeful – she does a wonderful job of portraying the grieving mother and desperate woman with all her emotions. You really feel for her.

Navin Chowdhry, who plays Gil, the man who takes an interest in Thea, is totally believable as the guy who seems to have it all, but who is a man with many secrets and demons of his own.

Rosie Day, winner of Screen International Star of Tomorrow, as Billie is a revelation. Playing a character nearly a decade younger than she is, you totally believe her portrayal of the cheeky, yet wise beyond her years teenager, who is constantly bickering with her twin brother but also gradually becoming a lifeline for Thea, in more ways than one. She is wonderful to watch.

Will Fletcher, plays Lenny, Billie’s twin and Sam’s boyfriend, just right. Goofy and funny, maybe taller but not quite as mature as his sister, this is also a great performance.

This play will follow you home and will stay in your head for days. It will make you question your own actions as well as those of people around you. In this day and age, where almost everybody is on social media in one form or another, do we always behave on there as we should, do we always ensure nobody comes to harm? Do we consider the consequences of our actions, short term and long term? Should parents use this medium to punish and humiliate their children, even if they mean it well?

And how did we get from giving somebody a funny look when they stood to close to the telephone box where we made a call to sharing our daily life, sometimes in the most intimate detail, online in just a few short years? It is so easy to forget, that out there is an audience of thousands and millions of people.

If you can, please go and see this play and, if you have one, take your teenager with you. The Girl Who Fell is a funny, beautifully written and brilliantly acted play about a very serious subject, a subject that we need to speak about. This play could literally save lives.

WRITTEN BY SARAH RUTHERFORD

DIRECTED BY HANNAH PRICE

DESIGNS BY GEORGIA DE GREY

LIGHTING BY ROBBIE BUTLER

SOUND BY ADRIENNE QUARTLY

PRODUCED BY EILENE DAVIDSON & STAGE TRAFFIC PRODUCTIONS

 

“A cracking new play … outrageously funny” (Telegraph ★★★★)

“A sparky, modern show … Rutherford is a fresh voice” (Daily Mail ★★★★)

“Fiercely funny stuff” (Time Out ★★★★)

RUNNING FOR A LIMITED WEST END SEASON

FROM 15 OCTOBER – 23 NOVEMBER 2019

Performances: Mon-Sat at 7.45pm, Thurs & Sat 3.00pm

Ticket Prices: From £20-£35

Running Time: approx. 100 minutes, no interval

Child Policy: 12 years and older

TRAFALGAR STUDIOS – STUDIO TWO

14 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2DY

Website: trafalgarentertainment.com / stagetraffic.com

Box Office: 0844 871 7632

Twitter: @TrafStudios/@StageTraffic