Inside Out (tour)

Teenaged half-sisters Affy and Di – whose lives are tarnished with bitterness, sadness and regret – look out for each other in every possible way. Their prostitute Mum, Chloe hopes Affy goes onto a better life, but isn’t so bothered about Di: Affy is white and Di is black.

Though they don’t share the same father, the sisters do share the same outlook on life and are both desperate to escape from their violent and dangerous upbringing. Affy gets the break she needs when her father reappears on the scene, but Di remains at home with Chloe and her boyfriend, dubbed ‘Godzilla’ by the sisters.

In its gritty realism, infused with a murky sense of gloom, Inside Out, a new production from the aptly named Clean Break theatre company, is reminiscent of the screenwriting of Mike Leigh or Ken Loach. But at the same time, writer Tania Gupta provides plenty of humour to keep alive the spirits of her central characters, who are three fully rounded women rather than the usual caricatures.

Brutal and honest, Gupta’s writing – inspired by her time working with women prisoners at HMP Winchester – is relentless in its determination to make you ‘feel’ rather than watch passively from a distance. This is borne out by Natasha Betteridge‘s direction which goes for the roots of the text, enabling each actress to embody their role rather than simply go through the motions.

Sarah Castle and Natasha Gordon are extremely convincing as the sisters.
They play off each other poignantly and well; you can almost feel the sense of loss when they’re apart. As Chloe, Connie Walker is great and reminded me at times of a younger Kathy Burke, hard-bitten but vulnerable. However, Walker’s dual role as Mercedes, the Brazilian prison inmate, is ill advised, seemingly out of place, looking and sounding like Margerita Prachatan.

Inside Out is not an easy play to watch, but its main strength is its
ability to see things through. Though there may be no conventional happy ending,
there’s solace in a slight glimmer of hope rather than a clearly defined
dead end.

– Glenn Meads (reviewed at Manchester’s Contact Theatre)