Review: DARK VANILLA JUNGLE, Theatre N16

"Ridleyworld" is not a place anyone would want to spend time - but it's a reality to many, its harshness, its misery, its snuffing out of any glimmer of hope simply what happens to them. But Philip Ridley is more than just a creator of a dystopian counterweight to the world of PG Wodehouse - his writing never fails to achieve a terrible poetry, the imagery striking, the language folding inwards on itself, the inarticulate given tongue to reveal the inhumanity of their situations and the humanity of their souls.

Andrea paces about in a smock with just a bucket and a roll of toilet paper, confined in the drama and confined by the venue. She is clearly incarcerated to some extent, but she breaks the fourth wall repeatedly to appeal to our reason, to our generosity, for our love.

She has never been loved and, like many such young people, mistakes attention and sex for love the moment it is offered. Soon she is used and abused and, again like so many kids treated so appallingly, acts out the same abuses herself, transferring her victim status to another even weaker than her. Ridley underlines this recycling of abuse through repeating relationships, metaphors and similes, as the writing folds back into its own (hi)story.

As Andrea, the sole actor and narrator, Emily Thornton delivers her monologue with a mixture of heartbreaking intelligence - had the dice rolled another way, Andrea would have done well at university - and bitter, justified aggression. Those intermittent screams into the audience did not work - we all know that the poor girl is unhinged and her most powerful statements are made conversationally, her perspective on life revealed by little asides, her "boyfriend's" gold tooth not trashy because he's so handsome and classy, her measure of currency being the price of a kebab.

At about 80 minutes, it's gruelling at times, though it's lovely when Andrea's eyes shine at the memory of feeling wanted for the first time after the crushing description of her invisibility at home. Her vicious misogyny is also hard to listen to, though we know it's born of her antagonism towards a mother who rejected her in favour of her father and her own all-encompassing, ever growing self-loathing. There's a danger - so relentless is her hatred of women - of the old failing of Alf Garnett raising its head: people will laugh with, and not at, such extreme language.

If plays can be divided into ice cream and broccoli, this is very much the latter, a work I'm glad to have seen rather than been glad to have been seeing. For all its merits and deeply dark humour, it does need a little more light, a little more hope to leaven the fare - though, of course, this is exactly what fringe theatre, and this venue, should be producing.

Dark Vanilla Jungle is at Theatre N16 until 31 March.

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