EDINBURGH 2010: BROADWAY WORLD REVIEWS: Bunny (Iron Belly)

18-year-old Katie is walking home from orchestra practise with her boyfriend, Abe - who's black, by the way, but she never knows how to bring it up - when Abe gets into a fight with a young boy on a bicycle for knocking an ice cream out of his hand. With Katie and Abe joined by some of Abe's older friends, there follows a car chase across the complex landscape of the UK's 'crappest town': Luton. This is the plot of Jack Thorne's Bunny, a tightly written character piece directed by Joe Murphy. It's a plot that lesser writers might buckle under, but that Thorne handles with a deftness of touch, neatly seguing from a lighter, comedic opening half into a brutal, heartbreaking finale that gets under the skin of small town, multicultural tensions and how confusing it is to be young and British today.

Rosie Wyatt shines as Katie, inviting the audience in with a cute, ditzy performance that becomes increasingly powerful as Katie finds herself in compromising scenarios, dealing with complex and confusing emotions with the frightening naivety of youth. Her tics and banter become more pronounced and revealing as the character slowly unravels.

There are some neat touches to this production - quirks of costume and lighting, and an animated backdrop of some of the monologue's key settings provided by illustrator Jenny Turner - that are certainly worth highlighting, but it's Wyatt's inviting, engrossing performance and Thorne's adroitly written script that make it truly outstanding.

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