Review: Sunny Girl at New Adelphi Theatre ‘is a show with hurt, humour and heart’

The Greater Manchester Fringe Festival arrives at the New Adelphi Theatre at Salford University for HER Productions play, Sunny Girl written and performed by Beth Westbrook.

Sunny Girl at New Adelphi Theatre

The show is led by Erin, a young woman in sunflower dungarees who believes she has autism, though her loved ones disagree. The show takes place inside Erin’s mind, described as “Erin’s Memory Palace” Erin leads the audience on her emotional story told through her memories of both “Adult Erin” and “Baby Erin” as she unpacks them to see if they fit within the symptoms of autism as she goes on her journey of diagnosis.

As each of Erin’s memories are revealed to the audience, the realities of autism are revealed to them as well.

Beth Westbrook plays the role of Erin perfectly and she provides voices to all the characters from Erin’s life, such as her hypercritical sister Kerry (who is nicknamed “Tit Witch”) and her dismissive boyfriend Alfie.

Incredible versatility from Beth Westbrook

Westbrook shows her versatility in this role, and her charisma and witty humour are on show all day long in this character-driven one-woman show.

The set design (by Tilly Phillipson) is really well executed as the world of Erin’s mind is brought to life as a messy room and garden with various clothes from different era’s such as a Taylor Swift shirt from her time at university or the pyjamas wore at her unsuccessful sleepovers.

The clothes are used to represent different characters in Erin’s life. While hung at the back of the set, a large bedsheet provides closed captions, so the audience can always follow the plot and shows the production’s inclusivity.

The show is short but sweet with a runtime of just an hour but Westbrook makes good use of the time to get across both Erin and the many lives around her.

Glorious lighting

The show makes good use of lighting such as the stage being bathed in red light to highlight a memory flashback, this coupled with the strong sound design (by Jess Brigham) effectively builds the atmosphere and highlights the reality of the sensory side of living with autism.

The show describes itself as the “Anti-Rain Man” as Sunny Girl shines a light on the true nature of Autism and moves away from Hollywood stereotyping seen in Rain Man and The Big Bang Theory which is more fiction than fact.

The show advertises itself as a relaxed performance and encourages the audience to relax and enjoy the performance in their own way.

Directed by Imogen Dowding, Sunny Girl is a show with hurt, humour and heart with the show providing an inclusive and informative look into how the autistic mind sees the world while representing the very real hurdles that the undiagnosed have to navigate in the world today.

As part of the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival, Sunny Girl is showing at the New Adelphi Theatre until Wednesday 24th July, tickets can be purchased by clicking here