From the first browse of the Fringe programme, Citizen jumped out at me as something to see.  The first sentence of the programme blurb “Interim Citizen 919933007 has chosen continued existence,” with its overtones of Kafka and Atwood, was tantalising and potent.

Most satisfyingly, the tenor of softly threatening bureaucracy carries through from this publicity material into opening night.  A low-fi but pitch-perfect design sense makes great use of the Vogelmorn Bowling Club venue’s faux-veneer interiors and fluorescent lighting and gives us a real sense of a world in which existential worth is not a given but something that must be demonstrated formally. 

Citizen is a courageously introspective piece of work from The Great Danger (Callum Devlin and Freya Daly Sadgrove).  Although Devlin shares a writing credit in the programme and is present onstage for (almost) the entire show, there is no doubt the piece is all about Sadgrove.  If there was any doubt, by the show’s final moments it has been forcefully obliterated.  This is the great authorial strength behind the work; it knows precisely where it wants to land its audience at the end.

I won’t give more away, but I will say that the first and last 10 minutes of the play are far and away the most enjoyable for me.  The menacingly comical opening and an ending that twists tightly and ratchets up the audience’s implication make for a theatrically fertile experience.

The meat of the performance is less satisfying, as Sadgrove delivers a timed presentation of her societal worth. Working her way through a smorgasbord of personal documents from birth until the present, the existential angst is certainly authentic, but lacks enough dynamism to sustain the length of the material fully.  Every small comic aside is lapped up like precious oxygen by the audience, as for much of the time the endless certificates and prizes are presented in a rather monotonous litany.

There is a purpose, of course, to this delivery – it’s a comment on the frailty of the ego. We all cling to the precious evidence of our societal success – I myself have volumes of old school certificates and clippings sitting up in my attic that burn away unpleasantly in the back of my psyche. These resonances are strong but the experience for the audience is lacking in surprise and variation. 

It’s not that the material isn’t worthy, just – in the show’s own words – under-rehearsed.  Given time, I feel sure that Sadgrove will find more moments in her performance to punctuate the material, to create more rhythm and melody in her delivery.

As the show enters its second act, and Devlin’s relationship to Sadgrove becomes a part of the story, things begin to move faster and more enjoyably.  Sadgrove’s character begins to reveal more weaknesses and complexities, finally exposing an honest self-expression that we have been longing to see all along. 

It’s a brave, complex and authentic piece of work that deserves attention, both from audiences and from the company.  Now that the hard(est) work of getting the show up for an audience has been done, Sadgrove and Devlin can set about tweaking and developing it to help it reach its full potential. 

Sadgrove has shown excellent use of her unique poetic voice to create this work. I rate her ‘Highly Commended’ and recommend that she be granted permanent citizenship. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer