Thirsty

Presented by The Paper Birds
Unity Theatre
Wednesday 28th March 2012

Reviewed by Jennifer Keegan

Thirsty tells the story of women's relationship with drinking. It aims to explain why we Brits, in particular British women, love drinking. The Paper Birds theatre company set up a hotline and blog, inviting women to share their experience with alcohol.

They then shared the stories they heard by referring to the women who called in as 'she'. She likes a glass of wine after she puts the baby to bed, she likes to have a bottle or two with dinner or she likes to drink to get drunk to let go of the strains life puts on her.

Jemma and Kylie are their real names, and they really have been friends since university, but as they began to go through the motions of acting out all these scenarios, the performance fell a bit short. It felt like we were at an after school special more than a theatre production. The points they raised were all relevant, and the dangers they pointed out are all real, but I think this would have been better aimed at school children.

I took my sister with me to see it, the stories hit home with both of us as we laughed at our own drinking horror stories afterwards, but it wasn't useful to us as we have already made our life choices, nor was it entertaining enough to be worth seeing on its own merit. Perhaps children in their early teens would have gotten more out of it. Both Jemma and Kylie seemed to relish being onstage, and both threw themselves fully into each role, but this would be better suited to a school workshop than an evening at the theatre for adults.

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