Girls And Boys @ Odeon Theatre, Norwood SA 1/3/2022

Girls and Boys is a powerful play for the Adelaide Festival performed solo by the incredibly talented and prolific Justine Clarke and directed by State Theatre Company of South Australia’s artistic director, Mitchell Butel.

An unexpected meeting at an airport leads to a head-over-heels relationship which leads to a world that starts to unravel. There are no tricks in this play as it is in the form of a very straightforward monologue. There is however some Hitchcockian red herrings and the audience is misled which I think is brilliant. You get a feeling early on that all is not as it seems and if you are like me you try and work it out. This is an intense story that is very funny in the beginning but then sneaks up on you and really hits home hard.

The Tony award-winning playwright, Dennis Kelly and actor Carey Mulligan debuted the work in London in 2018 and it has been very successfully translated to the Australian stage by our State Theatre Company.

Justine is brilliant and she makes the audience complicit in the story by addressing us directly which adds to how wonderful this play is. She was excellent at showing us the little details of family life. On the night I went she received a standing ovation and three curtain calls. I highly recommend this play. It appears that word of mouth is working for this play because although it runs until the March 12, it is almost completely sold out.

Adelaide Festival Review By Richard De Pizzol