Miss Fit - Studio Theatre, Everyman

Wednesday 26th November 2008

This is a Crackerjack review of Miss Fit. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.

Crackerjack rating: 10 / 10.

The origin of this play was a diary written by a school-girl, Tammy Walmsley-Reynolds. Tammy, from Cheltenham, wrote the diary during a time when she was severely bullied because of her disability, because she was not the same as everyone else.

She handed her diary to Bill Cronshaw and asked him to do something with it, to try and make a difference. After some deliberation he decided to do it and so he wrote Miss Fit.

There are various readings of excerpts from the diary which are extremely moving when you consider these are the thoughts and feelings of a real child who is forced to face up to the darker side of life at such a young age.

These are broken up by the well known story of the ugly duckling , narrated by a cheery Georgina Bryce, which in this context appears a much more sinister tale. There are also scenes from the play ground where children as young as six are already segregating other children.

We pay frequent visits to the consultant, played by John Martin-Stevens, who describes invasive surgery as if it were a walk in the park and the pain involved as something that could be “discussed at a later date”.

This pain is then vividly depicted by Sarah Thomas-Lane as Tammy, which was surprisingly more difficult to watch than the graphic images of the procedure on the screen behind.

All of the components sit together perfectly to portray not only the story of one girl but also bringing to our attention the issues of disability, bullying, women’s obsession with self image and the “myth of perfection”.

This is an extremely worthwhile production from Dreamshed Theatre which succeeds in not only entertaining but educating too.

They plan to show Miss Fit in schools, which I wish them every success in, and hopefully they can make the difference that Tammy was hoping for when she passed on her private thoughts to be performed in public.

This is a Crackerjack review of Miss Fit. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.