A fiery tragicomedy and scorching analysis of our climate crisis, Weather Girl at Soho Theatre is a rallying cry for the necessity of protecting our planet.
Weather Girl follows Stacey (Julia McDermott), a Californian weather girl who may look like a bleach-blonde-Barbie ‘perfect woman’, but in reality, is anything but. With a Stanley cup full of Prosecco, she is neurotic, impulsive, and a self-confessed alcoholic. See, California is on fire, and this is a fact which Stacey cannot stomach. As the wildfires consume her home, her life begins to be consumed with it. At the heart of this piece the question: how lost are we from nature, and therefore, from our humanity?
Watkins delivers a script which boasts a multi-layered exploration climate change to match it’s multi-layered narrative. The comedy is cutting, sharp, satirical – taking aim at consumer habits, capitalism at large, technological advancement, patriarchal power-welding and – maybe most chilling of all – our own well documented apathy. If the aim of this production is to snap you out of indifference, it certainly holds nothing back from achieving it. The images Watkin’s conjures are stark and harrowing. Opening the play with an news broadcast from Stacey outside a burning home, before revealing there are people in it. An extended stream of consciousness from an erratic narrator, the play bounces from humour to gut-punching reality within a heartbeat.
Tyne Rafaeli’s direction matches this exquisitely. Direction is slick, providing a sense of all-American blockbuster to pair with Stacey’s all-American plastic shiny gleam. Rafaeli navigates Stacey’s stream of consciousness with laser sharp precision, using a minimalist set to the upmost advantage. Isabella Byrd (designer) is dextrous in her use of lighting, jolting the audience between the highs and lows of the monologue with a purposeful staccato rhythm. Paired with Kieran Lucas’ sound design, the effect was gripping. Hats off to the technician, every moment was perfect to-the-beat. With set design – a studio green screen and some microphones – no doubt purposely letting the performance do the talking.
Julia McDermott stuns across the sixty-minute running time, with the punch, pace and unnerving energy of a woman truly on the edge. Watkins’ ingenious script crafts a layered, unstable and heartfelt character which demands an actor with serious depth in order to deliver the necessary narrative blows. Here, McDermott more than delivers, with the audience in the palm of her hand from the beginning, and in a chokehold by the end. The script is darkly comic, with a raw emotional underbelly. McDermott’s comic timing as Stacey (and the myriad of other characters she embodies) is brilliant, and as her sanity unravels, she moves with ease into a gripping portrayal of self-destruction and desperation. Still, through (almost) it all, baring a Hollywood smile despite being on the brink of insanity.
The only misstep in the production is felt toward the end of the piece. Where the stakes should have been their highest, the script began to over explain itself as a climate change piece. Though a minor infringement on an otherwise knock-out show, perhaps a more effective approach would have been to maintain a degree of subtlety, as this is a concept which deserves to be fully confident in its ability to deliver.
Weather Girl is a dazzling play: deeply funny and deliciously well executed, yet fundamentally disturbing. It was the talk of Edinburgh Fringe and, at it’s much anticipated London transfer, it has proved once again that it is a well-deserved smash hit.
Running till April 5th 2025. Tickets available here: https://sohotheatre.com/events/weather-girl/
Reviewer: Sadie Pearson
Reviewed: 12th March 2025
North West End UK Rating: