Adrian Howells’s alter-ego Adrienne has been opening her heart since 2002, usually to an audience of just one person. Not through poor ticket-sales, but because of the level of intimacy this performance has usually demanded. However, Adrienne has seen fit to push her boundaries on a number of levels, one such being her audience. She now opens up her cosy, sofa-filled lounge (and thematically-decorated bathroom) to a greater number of souls; around 25 per night.

The audience - which soon becomes a group of intimate, trusting strangers - is put at its ease by Adrienne with a glass of mulled wine and a mince-pie, as it chooses a sofa from which to watch the evening’s events unfold. The moral, if there is one, of each story, is that 'it’s all allowed'.

Adrienne isn’t a character as such. She’s the mask behind which solo-performer Adrian Howells freely admits he operates (or, debatably, hides). Barbie-doll advent calendars in hand, the audience chooses, at random, a door behind which lurks the title of Adrienne’s next tale. Some of the stories are recounted by Adrienne herself, others are played out on her telly as home-movies. Theatrical anecdotes pepper the first half, but after the interval - 'I think of it more as a rest, a breather, a chance to put on another hideous jumper' says Adrienne - the audience gets heart-warming glimpses of how her (or, rather, Adrian Howells’s) family feels about his identity now, and how he developed as a child.

Adrian Howells’s skill is two-fold: he’s the kind of drag-queen who works hard to reassure his audience that it can trust him. By ridding it of the fear of humiliation, audience members are allowed, spontaneously, to share or comment on experiences similar to those explained by Adrienne. Secondly, Adrian Howells manages to create a piece of theatre in which the audience not only cares about how he became who he is now, but what will happen to him as he leaves the stage at the end of the evening. Indeed having, therapeutically, shed Adrienne’s skin, Adrian Howells asks the audience to stay together for a few minutes more after he’s gone, to watch a slide-show accompanied by a Barry Manilow track. It's during those minutes that it finally becomes clear that the strangers who met two hours previously, have bonded via the conduit of Adrienne’s sharing.

Whether Adrienne’s world should be called theatre, performance-art or simply an open therapy session, it’s amazing how much warmer the world feels when you’re reminded 'it’s all allowed'.

Cast Credits: Created and performed by - Adrian Howells.

Company Credits: Director – John Hardwick. Designer – Theo Clinkard. Film-Maker – Ben Wright. Stage Manager – Chris Musgrave.

END

(c) Nigel Pilkington 2007

reviewed Thursday 18 January 2007 / Drill Hall

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2010

www.fringereport.com