Review: The Last Ginger

It’s 2117 and Scarletta Rose (Julie Stewart) is the last redhead: “I’m your celebrity now!” Confined in two rooms, the Celtic Scarletta reflects and regrets, rants and raves, dances and shouts, during a 23 minute solo performance.

Declaring that "2017 you really @#%&*! up" (apparently all redheads should be actively procreating to ensure that "gingers" do not die out), Scarletta shares fragmented memories of her life. The monologues focus on a former lover (Todd), and on her grandmother, both of whom met grisly ends (Todd knifed in bed, probably at the hands of Scarletta, and granny in a fire).

Pictured: Julie Stewart. Picture credit: Geoff Lawrence, Creative Futures Photography

Being the last of your kind, and “appreciated” purely for being “the only one,” is an unbearable pressure. The Last Ginger was certainly a presentation of a woman driven to madness, so it is perhaps understandable that the best parts of the show were the dancing to Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer’ (great choreography by Lynette Wockner), the sad and furious listing of slang (and often abusive) terms for redheads, and the off-stage ending (when Scarletta appears to end it all). But I find it difficult to recommend this show. I may not be alone; as I left, a fellow member of the audience asked ‘was that it? is it over?’

Congratulations to the team for bringing a show to the festival (director Silva A Sal, stage manager Tom Makepeace, and writer and performer Julie Stewart).

Pictured: Julie Stewart. Picture credit: Geoff Lawrence, Creative Futures Photography

Catherine Lawrence

The reviewer attended the 21st May 2017 (8pm) performance.

Tickets http://anywheretheatre.com/listings/ginger/ $12-17. 30 minutes (on 21st May began at 7:58 and ended at 8:21).  The show had 3 performances during the 2017 Anywhere Festival (19th–21st May).