Meet Taylor who is nine years old and likes tuna pasta, Jessie J, and martial arts. And Bryony, who is 31 years old and likes smoking, walking, and sushi. Bryony is Taylor’s aunty and she thinks Taylor is like a baby deer – innocent, awkward and full of annoying questions (Bambi rather than a real baby deer, then). Taylor thinks Bryony is a dinosaur – but that’s OK, she likes dinosaurs.
Cue Jessie J’s ‘Domino’. Bryony and Taylor give us a snazzy dance routine, both as sweet as could be with their matching long fair hair and long white socks, their buttoned and bowed puffed sleeve outfits a ludicrous contrast to the lyrics blaring out from the PA: ‘I’m sexy and I’m free…’ Bryony falls behind, and as Taylor continues the dance routine, Bryony strips down to shiny leggings and black bra, her Alice-in-Wonderland wig pulled off to reveal tousled peroxide blonde hair. She gyrates suggestively behind Taylor.
When Taylor has her ears covered up, Bryony confesses that she worries about being a suitable role-model for her young niece. She can’t remember what it feels like to be nine, but she knows that she feels a desperate, furious desire to protect Taylor from a violent, over-sexualised world that sizes up the ‘tween’ market and sells to it aggressively: Brat dolls (nine year olds are too old for Barbie nowadays, apparently). Peel-off nail varnish. Toy make-up. Pop tunes with sexy lyrics by Jesse J and Katy Perry.
Together, Bryony and Taylor devise an imaginary role model for nine-year-old girls. She’s called Catherine Bennett and she’s a pop star cum palaeontologist. Bryony plays her in a sparkly green Lurex dress with jokey big-framed glasses and a curly blonde wig. She sings silly songs with a set of twee actions that are more Birdie Song or Agadoo than Jessie J. Here, they lose me a little. If this creature is Taylor’s invention, then I think she was doing what kids do all the time – giving grown-ups the answers they think they want to hear. I’m pretty sure Taylor secretly likes Jessie J’s ‘Domino’ more than Catherine Bennett’s whacky animal action song. But maybe that’s the point. Bryony confesses that there’s a lot of adult interest in Catherine Bennett who has been interviewed on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, and become friends with Yoko One. It’s winning over the nine-year-olds that’s hard…
Despite being not too impressed by this made-up role model (although her dinosaur-bone necklace rang true), in all other ways the show won me over. I love the device of the ‘ear protectors’, allowing Bryony to riff freely on her own past life choices, her dawning maturity, and her fears for the world that Taylor is growing up in. I love the way Taylor is framed so beautifully and lovingly in so many different ways – dancing, play-fighting, talking on-mic, lying like a precious specimen of girlhood on a stark metal table, curled up like a puppy on top of Bryony. I love the hilarious, ludicrous, scene in which Bryony acts out gouging Taylor’s eyes out to protect her from witnessing the world’s horrors. I love the costumes (especially the girl knights in shining armour), the toy machine guns, and the silver-sparkled turquoisy-green painted set conjuring up an enchanted forest.
Bryony proves herself to be a credible, likeable, superstar role-model good enough for any growing girl – and it was a joy to be invited into the world she has created with her delightful niece Taylor. A brave and honest show, and hugely entertaining.