One day someone can be the most important person in your world. The next, they can simply disappear.
For them, it was a job. For you, it was your life.
That asymmetry sits at the heart of You and Me (and Whoever Comes Next), a funny, clever and ultimately moving autobiographical piece from Keron Day, playing himself alongside Lauren Koster as Dani, his new personal assistant.
Keron has cerebral palsy and requires 24-hour support. Dani is the latest in a succession of PAs, and Keron takes us entertainingly through some of her predecessors. “Christine is what you get when you order your PA on Temu,” he tells us.
It also starts to sound remarkably like dating.
There are the introductions, the getting to know one another, the irritating habits, the arguments and, eventually, the break ups. Except this is profoundly different to dating. On one side is somebody doing a job. On the other is somebody allowing another human being into almost every aspect of their existence.
How do you achieve balance when the relationship itself can never be balanced?
Keron’s eventual conclusion is quietly uncomfortable: be less demanding, expect less, keep the PA and keep the peace. There is something terribly revealing in that. The person with the greatest need for the relationship may consequently have the least power within it.
Day is fantastic, funny, personable and completely at ease carrying his own story. Its autobiographical foundations become particularly affecting when he recounts almost dying around the time of his birth. The response around me is palpable.
Structurally, the production is clever, periodically stepping outside itself and acknowledging both the performers and the act of telling Keron’s story.
I am less persuaded by the music. Merle Powell Smith’s live score assists transitions and provides atmosphere but sometimes feels more like a theatrical prop than an essential part of the storytelling, another leg supporting the table rather than part of its centre. There are also moments when the balance between music and speech makes the dialogue unnecessarily difficult to hear.
But these are relatively small reservations about a fascinating piece of theatre.
Most importantly, I leave knowing something I didn’t know when I entered. You and Me provides an insight into a life structured around dependence on other people, without reducing Keron to that dependence. It is funny, frustrating, intimate and human.
And the title becomes increasingly poignant. You and Me sounds permanent, romantic even. Then comes the parenthesis: (and Whoever Comes Next).
Because Dani might leave. Somebody else might arrive. For the PA, that can simply mean changing jobs.
For Keron, it means changing his world.
And beginning that strange first date all over again.
Playing until August 29th 2026, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026YOUANDM
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 11th August 2026
North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating: 4
Running time – 1hr