The play that takes its title from Bowie’s dismissal of the town where he went to art school is nearing the end of its run. KEN TOWL took the chance to glimpse at the brilliance of the one-woman show at its only performance in Croydon

You’re So F**king Croydon, its title inspired by David Bowie’s famous denigration of the town (the asterisks are the choice of the playwright, not an affectation chosen by this website), is a deep dive, as they say these days, into the meaning of life through the lens of Croydon and a woman growing up and going out in it, leaving it and coming back to it, always dressed in some or other shade of pink.

Katie Hurley is an Everywoman engaging with an Everytown. At the same time, she is as unique as every one of us, as unique as Croydon itself.

She is also very funny and she can dance, but after a successful season at the Edinburgh Fringe last year and a tour of the provinces (of which this was the penultimate night) the pressure would always be on her to triumph in front of a crowd of Croydon people. The stakes were high.

The always diverse and creative programme at Stanley Halls felt like the right place to host Hurley’s one-woman show on Friday. There was an eclectic crowd, a wide range of ages, ethnicities and genders. So very Croydon, in fact. There were no strangers here.

In the pink: Katie Hurley’s one-woman show is a deep dive

The show had a confessional tone, telling an apparently autobiographical story of a rollercoaster youth in which the ups were very high and the downs very low. Here there was much darkness and light, on the stage both figuratively and literally, and it is a tribute to Hurley’s talent that she could turn on a dime from high-energy dance and laugh-out-loud crowd-baiting comedy to introspective pathos with the merest shift in the way she stood.

It was indeed a deep dive, and quite a risk, for a performer. Self-reflection on stage can look mawkish and, literally, self-regarding, but Hurley has the capacity to pull it off, and her Truth is all the more powerful for that.

It is not just the talent. The “Truth” is in the mundane detail, working up the courage to go to the big Tesco, snacking on pickled onion Monster Munch, Ikea on a Saturday.

Indeed her conjuring up of a domestic argument in the car park of Ikea was masterful. You could see it as she half-recounted, half-acted it out. And you could feel it, too, because it was an argument we have all had. And then, with a click of the fingers, it evaporates and we are back to the fun and the music. Another costume change, another shade of pink.

There was a powerful moment towards the end, when Hurley called out “Art matters!” and this evoked a powerful and spontaneous cheer from the audience.

I think this was because she had just proved that it mattered and that she had communicated to an almost packed Stanley Halls that she needed to be on stage, needed to write and to perform, needed to tell her Truth, and we all needed the catharsis of Art on a Friday night in Croydon. It is very difficult to express just how good that moment was.

I suppose you will just have to go and see for yourself. The last night – and it should be quite a night – is at Jackson’s Lane tomorrow, May 20.

Keep an eye on the name Katie Hurley.

Perhaps next year we’ll see You’re So F**king Edinburgh, or You’re So F**king England.

In the meantime, I am going to lobby the editor of Inside Croydon to change the name to Inside F**king Croydon. That’s what some of the local politicians call it anyway.

Listen to Katie Hurley being interviewed about You’re So F**king Croydon on our Under The Flyover podcast – available on our Spotify channel – just click here . Important: be aware, there may be some strong language used during the programme. So don’t complain that you weren’t fucking warned…

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