This was my first trip to The King’s Arms, and this 54-seat black-box venue, nestled in the historic heart of Salford, felt like the perfect setting for this one-woman show, performed as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe.
Written and performed by Neysa Killeen, a self-styled Irish storyteller, the play begins in medias res with Lizzie, a 27-year-old woman, making the difficult decision to leave her Dublin flat and return home to the unwelcoming arms of her father. Defeated in her quest to become a hard-hitting investigative journalist by a combination of the stitched-up patriarchy and the cost-of-living crisis, Lizzie’s story charts her personal journey from a small child dubbed ‘cold’ by her aunt on the day of her mother’s funeral to a wrung-out postgraduate struggling to pay her rent and keep her dreams alive in a world that seems designed to grind her down.
The story itself struggles to find an anchor. Part route de passage, part social commentary, the storyteller flits between making statements about the nature of society and telling the very personal story of a girl at odds with her family and the expectations placed upon her as she chooses to follow a path less trod. There is a third strand to the tale, dealing with the exposé of a high-profile scandal. However, this aspect feels rushed and left me with more questions than answers. Ultimately, in the time available, it wasn’t possible to explore each of these narrative components in enough meaningful depth, and the end result was therefore something of a conceptual muddle.
Direction by Licie Wood was simple but effective, and the staging, including the use of multimedia, worked well for the most part. I did, however, find it difficult to differentiate between the voices in some of the recorded dialogue, which made for some confusing exchanges.
The central performance from Neysa was solid and well-paced but ultimately lacked emotional depth or meaningful character exposition, which again was not helped by the unfocused nature of the story. It was in the telling of the personal stories about her father and her sister, Caoimhe, that we saw the best glimpse of Lizzie’s character and her unique perspective on the world.
Ultimately, paywall is an ambitious piece whose strongest moments lie in its intimate family drama, even if its broader social commentary prevents it from ever quite finding a clear narrative focus..
paywall has one more performance as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe, at 9pm on Tuesday 21st July 2026 at The King’s Arms, Salford. Tickets are available via the King’s Arms website.
Reviewer: Dan Grimes
Reviewed: 20th July 2026
North West End UK Rating:
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