An unhinged, high-energy night at The Fairfield Social in Manchester, this audience-immersion show by Azaelia Slade (first seen at last year’s Edinburgh Free Fringe) runs on a one-hour timer, with each performance ending slightly differently. You feel the clock ticking — and the chaos building.
The evening opens with stand-up from Jess Pennell, who instantly wins the room. Her warm, confessional set ranges from “HRT hun” jokes about her mum’s candle evolution (from linen and soft cotton to witch’s brew) to tales of house fires, banana allergies, riding ambulances, and the realisation — mid-paramedic chat — that she probably should have reported a road traffic accident to the police. Add in accidentally running someone over, being stalked by them, then turning herself in out of guilt, and the audience was firmly on her side. Very funny. Very watchable.
Slade’s main piece begins with narrator - Sophie’s dysfunctional childhood and spirals rapidly from there. Narrated, written, and performed by Slade, the line between fantasy and reality is deliberately blurred — I was often unsure where one ended and the other began.
The direction makes full use of Slane’s agile physicality: she doesn’t just tell the story, she completely occupies it, acting out every moment, including (as she describes it) inserting prohibited Class A’s into her own “hidden bag”. Her frenetic energy is central to the performance — the kind you associate with people who are off their heads, slightly unhinged, or very, very good at pretending. That is clearly the characterisation she’s aiming for, and it works, though there are moments where you’re unsure whether you’re meant to laugh — which only adds to the discomfort and tension.
The show veers into theatre of the absurd with rapid costume changes and intense physicality, culminating in a cocaine-muling trip to Magaluf that feels like Trainspotting crashing into Jeremy Kyle. Audience participation is constant but gentle: cartoon character drawings assign roles ranging from parents and siblings to drug mules and deranged neighbours. The room was full of willing participants, with nothing too risqué beyond reading lines.
A standout running gag involved an Irish mule called Aine, (‘ it had a funny comma above the A and I called her Annie) complete with a visual guide to pronunciation. When the audience cast member failed repeatedly to get the accent right — despite Sophie admitting she’d been practising hers “because she bloody loved the Irish” — it was genuinely, uncontrollably funny.
It’s gripping, funny, chaotic, and exhausting in equal measure. By the end, I still wasn’t entirely sure what actually happened — and that, it seems, is exactly the point.
The show is being performed at other venues across the UK. Check Instagram for details - @Azaeliaslade
Reviewer - Kathryn Gorton
On - 29th January 2026
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