Rosie Day, the writer and performer of Instructions for a Teenage Armageddon, has said that she wrote the show as a dare when she was challenged by a director to write a one-person play. Having played many teenagers in her film and TV career and spurred on by what she says is a distinct lack of roles for teenage girls on stage, the play was inspired by an article Day read in 2018 which stated that one in four teenage girls are self-harming in the UK.
Following an initial, pandemic-scuppered run at the Old Red Lion Theatre, the play returns to Southwark Playhouse beefed up with the addition of Dan Light’s video footage in which Day’s performance interacts with Amanda Abbington and Philip Glenister who play her parents, and Isabella Pappas who plays her impossibly cool – “the kind of girl you never wash off” – but corrupting best friend Ella. A voiceover is provided by none other than Maxine Peake as Scouts leader Sensible Susan.
After her 17-year-old anorexic sister Olive’s premature death, Eileen, 13, becomes curiously irreverent – “at least the coffin will be light” – in the aftermath. Her parents are too preoccupied by their mutual animosity to notice that Eileen is flailing emotionally, having been shunned by friends who don’t know how to respond to Olive’s death. At least the Scouts, which she attends every week, helps her sublimate some of her repressed grief. Gradually, we realise that her spikiness is the coping mechanism of a lonely, misunderstood teenage girl who tries to get help but can’t and who desperately misses the older sister she idolised. Over the course of the subsequent 3 years, her parents get divorced, find new partners and vie to become her ‘most loved’ by showering her with material things. Her mother’s new man is red-flag creepy while her father’s new girlfriend Sarah has a 10-year-old daughter whom Eileen finds insufferably cheery which is ironic because Eileen often wears a striped t-shirt emblazoned with the word ‘HAPPY’.
That eye-catching word ‘Armageddon’ – in its received definition as a catastrophic, end-of-days battle between good and evil – rather overstates the premise of the show. Essentially, this is a coming-of-age play whose familiar tropes of adolescent rebellion will be recognisable to anybody who has watched a high school drama. Instructions for a Teenage Armageddon goes further, though, than a mere portrait of teenage angst. The play’s more sombre themes navigate grief, eating disorders, self-harm, “slut-shaming” and statutory rape that are nonetheless leavened by Day’s coruscating black humour which frequently drew gasps of shocked laughter from the audience.
Bafta Rising Star Day, who looks a lot younger than her 27 years has an ear for a witty turn of phrase and, having played lots of teenage girls, a firm grasp on their argot. Her writing is excellent and in performance, her comic timing is spot-on. The play flounders a bit because the plotting of the story doesn’t feel like it has been teased out properly. Nevertheless, it’s a welcome addition – with Purple Snowflakes and Titty W—s at the Royal Court and The Glad Game at Hampstead Theatre – to a theatre industry that is supporting young women’s voices in ways it hasn’t done before.
Until March 5. Tickets: 020 7407 023; southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
