one4review | On 15, Aug 2026

Sometimes a show’s blurb doesn’t do it justice. This is a clever, smart and engaging piece of theatre, and not the dry, earnest show-about-words that I was half expecting. It is about words, but it’s also about how we use them, and what they’re for and how they function, and what happens if we don’t share a common understanding of the meaning of a word, and how it’s really weird to be talking about words using…words.

It’s an entire piece of theatre too, not a dramatised essay or a contemplative monologue. The concepts explored are demonstrated, given life, made real, and we see a narrative and characters unfurl on stage. The show’s about words, so the word play – and the playing with words – is, naturally, on point, starting with a masterful train of thought and its various stations, and only improving from there.

The writing is great: conveys a lot of complex concepts with clarity and brevity, but the dialogue retains spontaneity and verve, it hasn’t been refined of all life. All of the acting is similarly excellent, characters coming and going without confusion but with a lightness of touch and body language that evokes them all clearly. The theatre space is also used really well, characters speaking from places that reflect and enhance what they have to say, fourth-wall-breaking and audience-implicating.

It’s not a heavy piece, and it’s a hugely engaging amount of fun: it’s an hour (only an hour?) well spent.

Reviewed by Laura
Just the Tonic @ The Mash House
Until 30th (not 18th)