Southwark Playhouse, London
Ollie Maddigan’s open-hearted solo show about a motherless 15-year-old is full of crude comedy and swaggering confidence – until it exposes the grief underneath and becomes a sweet, emotional tearjerker
Ollie Maddigan’s mum is dead but he’s too busy trying to kiss girls to be sad about it. This open-hearted solo show, based on Maddigan’s own life, is a love letter to his mum – to all mums, really – told with unguarded love and wicked wit. Tickets should come with tissues.
Maddigan plays his cocky 15 year-old-self, who is running from grief on top of dealing with the typical horrors of teenage angst. We start with the important information: how to befriend the cool guy at school, how to secure the strong stuff (cider) for the park, and which porn sites are top of the range. Maddigan’s expressions are elastic as he builds up this teenage world of crass jokes and uncontrollable erections, while anything more serious is pushed away for later. When he first tells us about his mum, he zooms through the fact of her death as if it’s just another detail in his day. Like everything’s totally fine.
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