Review by Marissa Burgess

For every bit part in Holby City an actor lands, there’s a dozen failed auditions. Actress Kiki Kendrick has decided to put all that disastrous experience to good use, digging out all those embarrassing moments and insulting experiences.

There was the time she walked in on the director on the toilet, the incredibly rude treatment she experienced at an audition for a loo cleaner ad, and the arrest when she played it too real as a vagrant outside the casting director’s house.

Towards the end of this hour you’re joining Kendrick in wondering why she doesn’t give it up after so many dispiriting incidents, even if they do make for great anecdotes. But the fact that Kendrick has signed up to performing a one-woman show for three weeks at the Fringe, tells us what she already knows herself: that she clearly loves it.

Kendrick takes to the stage to the melodrama of Jacques Brel’s Next, the Belgian singer’s song about visiting an army brothel and the dehumanising nature of being a soldier. Thus Kendrick’s already nicely evoking the often demeaning experience of being herded through auditions. It could make for a depressing hour, but Kendrick is, in the main, breezy throughout her recollections, and the humour is light-hearted if not belly-aching.

Technically the production is faultless; a smart pared-down affair. Kendrick appears with neat black bob, slash of red lipstick and sporting practical black Lycra on which to place her minimal costumes. Simple lighting indicates the scene changes as one audition transforms into the next. Kendrick effortlessly brings to life each moment, emotions dance across her expressive face, although it’s mainly embarrassment and horror that are the order of the day.

Altogether it’s thoroughly enjoyable lunchtime show that gives an insight into the casting process.

Review date: 24 Aug 2010
Reviewed by: Marissa Burgess