The Coldest Day Yet

Back to the cosy Upstairs at the Western theatre in Leicester's West End for the debut performance of Charlie Langdell's sweet story of a teenager stuck in an ever shrinking rut until circumstances present an escape route.
17 years old and fiercely intelligent but frustratingly stuck on the tills at a Birmingham Sainsburys Local, this unnamed girl seems to accept her lot caring for her parents, her father's dementia getting worse and her mother running away to Lanzarote. Sat at a bus stop we hear the trials and tribulations which have led her to possible salvation.
Written by Charlie Langdell, a graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, this is an assured performance by her of a beautifully written piece of observation worthy of a young Alan Bennett.
Monologues are notoriously difficult to write properly but this was an accomplished piece of prose with a start, middle and end which deftly took us through the story of how this put-upon teenage girl finds herself finally breaking free. Or is she?

First published in Western Gazette 
© Paul Towers 30/11/2013