one4review | On 16, Aug 2026

Written and performed by Sally Brookes, Stay is an intensely personal and emotional journey through love, grief and the difficult business of learning not to run away.

Brookes introduces us to a version of herself who is fiercely self-sufficient, super-controlled and protected by firmly fixed boundaries. Faced with emotional turmoil, her instinct has always been to bolt rather than risk being hurt. Then she falls in love with a grieving father and finds herself becoming part of a family in which simply walking away is no longer quite so easy.

At the heart of the piece is Sally’s developing relationship with her stepdaughter Harper. Brookes displays tremendous emotion as she recounts the challenges they face together and the considerable strength of will required to stay the course when every instinct tells her to escape. There is an engaging honesty to her storytelling, particularly when she acknowledges her own shortcomings and the uncomfortable realities of becoming a parent to someone else’s child.

What emerges is a touching portrait of a woman discovering that love requires more than affection: it demands patience, vulnerability and, above all, staying power.

Stay is ultimately about transformation – and the courage it takes to stop running, to open yourself to love and to simply stay.

*****

Reviewed by Rona

Gilded Balloon Patter House – The Penny

3pm

Until 30^th August