Imogen Ashby, with support from Sheffield Theatres and the LEVEL Centre, brought her raucous, raw solo show ‘Dry Bits’ to the Crucible Playhouse stage. What followed was a night of humour, vulnerability, ferocity and honesty.
To the show’s credit, whilst a one-woman piece about menopause might feel like it has a very clear target audience (and it does), it is ultimately a story about change, memory and how we attach and detach ourselves emotionally from moments, events and conditions of past, present and future life. That seems loaded, but this show also knows exactly what it is and isn’t afraid to put that on the tin (the show’s title doesn’t leave much to the imagination, for example). The concept is delivered with great playfulness and kookiness to good comedic effect. Ashby is both The Hulk and ‘that woman who shat on her builders’. Her performance is endearing and committed but occasionally lacking some of that theatrical precision that solo work is often so dependent upon. Its casualness at times is incredibly welcome, but it also feels that its impreciseness is too comfortable at times. Transitions are not slick, and while they don’t pretend to be, I feel that maybe they should be. It feels like this is a show still figuring itself out in how it wants to present itself, even if its script and structure feels very deliberate and concrete.
Lucy Morrison’s direction and dramaturgy is welcome but again there isn’t quite a total and rewarding cohesion on stage in execution. There are some great ideas deployed – making metaphor literal in the theatrical sense (Ashby is at times head to toe ‘Hulked’ up), but again the performance doesn’t seem all too excited to really fill the boots of Ashby and Morrison’s dramatic narratives. Ashby beautifully embraces the bizarre, ridiculous and the confrontational – but there is hesitation when we see these abstractions delivered. As ferocious as Ashby’s pounding of a giant inflatable penis is, I don’t believe her fury in that moment, and it feels for show still. Which of course, it is, but the crux of comedy is in its illusion, and I found myself wishing I felt more distracted by the ideas Ashby was presenting instead of observing the inescapable reality of the make-believe. I don’t want to recognise that something is *supposed* to be funny. I want it to *be* funny. That said, there is fortunately something explicitly funny about watching a woman in her 50’s batter a big inflatable willy. Sometimes the concept is enough!
In many ways that’s perhaps the best way to engage with this work – knowing that despite it being a cerebral, comedic depiction of a menopausal identity crisis, it isn’t delivered with sharp, electric focus and dramatic prowess. Instead, it’s a playful workshop, an honest testimony, just a bit of a laugh. I believe its ceiling is taller than it maybe has imagined, but for audiences there is still plenty to raise the roof with.
Reviewer: Louis Thompson
Reviewed: 24th February 2026
North West End UK Rating: