KAREN
Rating: ★★★★
Venue: Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh

We open on Protagonist's 30th birthday at the Alton Towers, where her life takes an unexpected turn. Mid-Calippo, she's unceremoniously dumped by her long-term boyfriend, Joe. Things go from bad to worse when Joe then starts dating her office arch-nemesis: Karen. Protagonist must now navigate a powder keg of heartbreak and identity crisis which explodes in the ultimate office showdown. Seamlessly breaking the fourth wall, Protagonist will whisk you through a chaos-filled narrative that has been described as Fleabag meets The Office with Cameron-West as 'the female Peep Show' (TheNerdParty.com).

KAREN is a one-woman comedy following the main character (Sarah Cameron West) who is never named. The show opens on her 30th birthday, screaming, mid-Calippo, in the middle of a theme park at her now ex-boyfriend who has clearly chosen this exact moment to end their relationship. It goes on to establish that her worst nightmare has come true, and her long-term boyfriend has just left her to shack up with the office suck-up, Karen, and she now has to navigate both her personal and professional life while still having to see and work closely with Karen.

What I like about this show is that it manages to over dramatise parts of the story for humour while also leaving room for the collective understanding that actually our protagonist's reactions to what is happening in her life are fairly proportionate and, yes there has been exaggeration for comedic effect, but she reflects the way most of us feel on the inside pretty accurately while we’re all conditioned to hide any big feelings that aren’t ‘socially acceptable’.

We follow the protagonist through the aftermath of her breakup and watch her slowly come to terms with her new reality, strongly spreading the ‘it’s okay not to be okay’ message that people often post on a pretty background for ‘the gram’ but struggle to internalise.

The script is fantastically witty, the perfect combination of comedy and tragedy. It’s sharp and serious in all the right places with a solid helping of drama and humour, in a way that makes it at least partially relatable to most of the audience. The fourth wall does not exist, and Sarah seamlessly navigates between the two worlds, gently blurring the line at times but never quite merging them.

It’s a really sweet wholesome story of female empowerment and self-acceptance, as our protagonist learns that she will be okay on her own but also that it might take a while to get there and that’s okay too.

You can find out more about KAREN, here.

Review by Rachel