Personable, leaning in to her audience to join her confessional, Chloe Radcliffe has a smile that broadcasts across her entire face and forgives her anything. Which is when she declares herself a cheat with disarming humour and honesty.
Tales of her own relationship history and how she found herself chasing the dragon of NRE (new relationship emotions) are mixed in with family history and anecdotes. There is nuance, a bit of emotional work on Radcliffe’s part, and a confidence that she explains in part as being the newer hotter self that arrived two years ago and pairs well with her desired and aspired stronger power position. There’s crafty writing eliciting laughter and an ease in hearing stories of infidelity without that infidelity being condoned. A genuine safe space of her own construction, allowing the humour to rise and bubble naturally and regularly.
For a show that is so sexually explicit and up front, Radcliffe delivers a surprisingly romantic denouement. Not idealised or self-delusional, there’s a depth to her reflections that goes further than a simple fairytale mirage, an honest take on what might be a modern happiness model moving forward. And it’s this openess, this hope, that is shot throughout the show that lifts it into breaking inherited patterns and keeps that broad truthful smile glowing from the middle of Radcliffe’s face into the corners of her audience.
Pleasance Courtyard – Bunker Three, 19:15, 3-27 August 2023 (except 14th)
