FringeReview UK 2026
Girl Out of the Blue
Close Quarter Productions
Genre: Comedic, Contemporary, Costume, Dark Comedy, Drama, Fringe Theatre, New Writing, Theatre
Venue: Tabard Theatre
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Of course she could be lying. And Abi already has. When a celebrated international journalist is offered a story by a 17-year-old girl he quickly discovers what she’s really after. Giles Cole’s Girl Out of the Blue plays at the Tabard Theatre directed by Jonas Cemm till October 10.
Do see this achingly funny and poignant play. It could hardly be bettered, except in a larger production; and should transfer to the Off-West-End.
Review
Of course she could be lying. And Abi already has. When a celebrated international journalist is offered a story by a 17-year-old girl he quickly discovers what she’s really after. Giles Cole’s Girl Out of the Blue plays at the Tabard Theatre directed by Jonas Cemm till October 11.
What Abi’s question is seems relatively simple. By a process of elimination, rifling through her mother’s diaries, she’s concluded Doug (Jonathan Sidgwick) is her father, who left when Abi’s mother Beth (Sarah Berger) was pregnant. Doug had instantly hooked up with lawyer Maya (Seeta Indrani) and they have two daughters, one almost as old as Abi. Clearly Maya, first seen with Doug in a slinky embrace, isn’t pleased. Everyone it turns out is deeply implicated in Abi’s past.
Abi (Miranda Braun) is precociously clever, and as Beth points out, acting like an adult but still vulnerable. Beth’s been overprotective, Abi harbours dreams of going to Oxford and she’s likely to get the grades. Beth thinks that’s pipe dreams. These days money prevents bright young people without funds from going to university, especially places like Oxford. Unless… The dynamics of desire, motive and resentment build inexorably.
Cole’s particularly effective at portraying the vulnerabilities, flaws and occasional unpleasantness in all his characters. Indrani as the permanently lawyered-up lawyer is nominally the least sympathetic: but is Maya wrong? And no-one knows Abi’s paternity for certain. Doug seems fascinated with the girl who might turn out to be his eldest daughter. But that’s not only at the expense of his own daughters and most of all Maya, but another version of his perennial evasions. Beth and Maya have little in common: but both wish this had never happened. Beth who had a breakdown and has pursued an impoverished life, clings on to Abi.
Abi herself is both spiky and provocative. She knows the buttons she’s pressing. They can lead to explosions. Just why is she so elegantly hostile to Maya when they meet? Maya already primed for hostility doesn’t wait to find out. Has Abi venal reasons for tapping on a comparatively wealthy man? At least one question needs answering.
The scene of the potentially never-opened sealed envelopes Abi and Doug receive recalls the near-proposal scene in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. It’s brilliantly distracting, endlessly teasing and poignant. The denouement when it comes is both satisfying and open-ended. By then of course everyone’s lives have altered beyond recognition.
Braun’s consummate as Abi: preternaturally quick and witty, preppy, pert, and naggingly unable to leave alone, Braun’s Abi turns every compliment or challenge on its head. Yet Braun draws out Abi’s needs and makes her relatable, even quirkily loveable.
Sidgwick’s Doug is a mix of dashing matinee journalist and genuine warmth. He peels back layers of the Doug who can swivel from one object of fascination to another, and shows Doug has never really taken emotional responsibility; whatever his verbal dexterity leads him to.
Indrani’s adamantine lawyer is soft-spoken but quietly seething, and though given little room behind her lawyer’s armour, makes Maya’s plight at least sympathetic. Berger as Beth transitions from the dishevelled stressed woman who’s shoehorned herself into the role of Abi’s jut-coping mother, through to the woman Doug once knew. Her limbering-up to power is wrought with an audible voice-change; and breaking open her greater vulnerability over Abi is superbly handled. Berger’s the emotional powerhouse of this production; and scenes between Sidgwick and Berger, and between Sidgwick and Braun sizzle. Indeed this cast is first rate all-through. It’s not often one encounters such a production outside off-West End.
But then this is a Close Quarters Production. Cole’s celebrated for both a dozen Radio 4 plays and a similar number of stage works. He’s particularly known for The Art of Concealment about Terence Rattigan, and most recently the award-winning After All These Years (2023-24); the third of his plays to be presented at Jermyn Street Theatre. It later transferred to the Tabard.
The Tabard’s intimate space is often a brightly-lit one suffused with changing colours. Here Bethany Blake’s design effortlessly transforms the stage with intricately painted screens (with design assistant Tessa Vaughan), executed in swirls poised between Paisley and Art Nouveau on acid. A few tables, chairs and a sofa with props are fleetly removed or shifted as scenes demand. Beyond Andrew Johnson’s mix of Bach cello and orchestral suites (representing Beth), and slam-door effects, William Godfree has composed two superb off-kilter waltzes for piano (jazz and melancholic); like Cole’s work they speak of a larger production.
Cole certainly chimes with Ibsen’s observation that in plays, everybody is right. Throughout its one hour 45, with interval, Girl Out of the Blue engrosses with both its theme and Cole’s intricate working-out of the implications of real or imagined paternity. The motives peel back, the consequences grow; at the end possibilities are both narrowed and blown open.
Do see this achingly funny and poignant play. One tackling a theme both universal and yet not often enough broached; especially in an era when intimate – yet perennial – drama has ceded to issue-based work. It could hardly be bettered, except in a larger production; and should transfer to the Off-West-End.
Production Stage Manager Alexandra Kataigida, Social Media Manager Angela Otterson. Producer Alexander ‘Sandy’ Marshall, Julia Holofcener for Holofcener Ltd, Close Quarter Productions.
