one4review | On 10, Aug 2024

Yolanda Mercy is the writer and performer of this often witty and occasionally heart wrenching play, which is the story of Ade Adeyami, a London based, hardworking black female playwright teetering on the edge of being successful. Her play ‘Day Girl’ has been commissioned and she has dates for the theatre run. However, rather than allow Ade to play herself and speak her own words on stage, the producers have cast an influencer, who mangles the carefully crafted dialogue and makes suggestions to ‘improve’ the play. Instead of fighting her corner, Ade keeps quiet, constantly compromising her needs and desires to try to make some progress in her chosen career path. When she tries to pitch a new story of a strong black woman scientist to a different production company, they are only interested when racism is mentioned. Ade’s personal life is equally compromised – she is in a ‘situationship’ with Marcus, who appears to come and go as he pleases and really doesn’t understand her career. As a social media backlash jeopardizes Ade’s dream of a theatre run for Daygirl, her pent-up emotions spill over and she reaches breaking point.

Yolanda is a sparkling performer. From the moment she walked onto the stage, she had the audience wrapped around her little finger. She gives voice to all the characters in her story, as well as Ade, and her portrayal of Denise (the influencer) was a particular joy. The audience were so bound up in the story, there were audible intakes of breath when the play took an emotional turn and, at the end, Yolanda received a well-deserved standing ovation. A must see production.

*****
Reviewed By Rona
1.30pm

Summerhall – Anatomy Lecture Theatre

Until 26th August