Nan, Me & Barbara Pravi [at The Stables, AC Arts]
This poignant dramady, collaboratively created with a slick technical and design team, dramaturg Annie Siddons and performance director Len Gwyn, premiered at 2023 Edinburgh Fringe to much acclaim. Frankly, Adelaide Fringe is lucky to have it.
The play is performed by alpha-creator Hannah Maxwell, an outstanding personality with such confidence (and talent) in performing the work, she deftly befriends the audience as herself, the actor, making them allies, in the process of unravelling the story about the main character, also herself.
It strikes me that the BBC Comedy Collective have yet to notice Hannah Maxwell, otherwise Jon Petrie surely would have snapped her up by now.
This show is simply waiting for the right Production House to produce it as the pilot for a series, it really is ‘that’ ready. It is an autobiographical story concerning the loss of Hannah’s granddad and time after his death spent caring for her Nanna.
Hannah has everything around her Nan’s house completely well organised, in the way any respectably moderate lesbian infused with obsessive and compulsive traits would. Everything is moving along satisfactorily until Hannah notices Barbara Pravi, a contestant in the Eurovision Song Contest.
This is where the suburban influences of popular television programs with their forced insistence on overthinking, nudges Hannah into a romantic fantasy crush. With time on her well-manicured hands, Hannah’s OCD tendencies draw her deeper and deeper into a very well-ordered mania, until she finally comes face to face with Pravi. Mission accomplished!
It is at this point we see the crush become the crusher as Hannah’s innate lack of confidence and feelings of inadequacy strike. Themes of repression, grief and addiction are rarely presented in such an engaging and entertaining way. The comedy is fulsome, the tragedy is harsh, but the visceral determination to rise and shine is breathtaking. An inspiring work so well done you’ll barely notice how profoundly engaged you’ve been until it’s over. This is premium theatre at a bargain price, five, glossy, victorious stars.