Weather Girl, Soho Theatre review - the apocalypse as surreal black comedy

Can Francesca Moody do it again? Fleabag’s producer has brought Weather Girl to London, after a successful run at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, mirroring the path taken by Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s creation. But the new show is a much tougher assault on modern mores.

Comparisons will be inevitable, though, as both shows are comic monologues, delivered in that conspiratorial way to the audience that became a Fleabag staple. And Stacey, immaculately portrayed by Julia McDermott, is equally personable, though even more out of control. She’s a weather girl for a Fresno TV station, a superslim blonde with a Farrah Fawcett ‘do and a wardrobe that shouts “notice me”: acid-pink pencil skirt and a red ruffle-collared blouse with plunging neckline. But her Stanley Quencher travel-mug isn’t full of water, and her sanity is slipping.

The show starts in unlit gloom, as Stacey unspools her inner thoughts in a babygirl voice. Why did she become a weather girl? Was it her way of staying one jump ahead of an act of God? The world seems weird when it’s 4am and it’s still hot and you can feel “the devil’s breath” in your ear, she says. A miracle will be needed as the Valley goes into its third year of drought, and she declares she will tell us the story of how she found one. 

Suddenly, the lighting flashes on, revealing a vibrant lime backdrop that suggests the over-the-top production values of Stacey’s workplace. She goes on-air live, delivering her self-serious, rat-a-tat report to camera in front of a burning house, her makeup melting and, treasurable detail, her sweat pooling in her Spanx. Once back in the studio she produces inanely chatty bromides that promise the “folks” tuning in good barbecue conditions even as their neighbourhoods go up in flames. McDermott, a Californian herself, gives a masterclass in producing the quacking rhythms of the Valley Girl TV presenter, the words spewing out non-stop almost without shape or reason, ending with the raspingly percussive, “Here’s Jackie with your traffic!”

We soon start spotting the chinks in her immaculately turned out armour: the alcoholism, the insecurity that leads her to smile through her unhappiness as she’s been told to, and to go on dates with men she hates. Mostly, she despises herself. Especially when a colleague tells her a family of four and their dogs had died in the burning house she had used as backdrop for her live broadcast — people who wouldn’t evacuate as they thought the alerts were a government hoax. Her concern for the environment and the madness of climate change denial begin to poke through her fixed-smile facade. And, troublingly, she starts feeling the magnetic pull of the land, which brings her literally down to earth, lying prone on the stage.

Her pushback is triggered when her boss tells her she is being “promoted” to Phoenix, Arizona, even more arid than Fresno. After threatening to murder her colleagues for this manoeuvre, she turns dangerous instead with her date, a man whose name she doesn’t know but decides, as he is a tech bro, to call Mark. His start-up is planning to build 600 “smart homes” locally. But where will their water come from, she quizzes him pointedly? He reckons somebody will figure it out. Why, she continues, satirically, doesn’t he set up a company that makes water instead?

Into this spiritual desert wanders a familiar figure sporting one old hiking boot — her homeless mother, a heroin addict who lives in an encampment of meth-heads near the El Pollo Loco (Crazy Chicken) restaurant. When Stacey follows her, she finds her mother has an unlikely new addiction: karaoke at a forlorn bar called the Antelope Lounge. Three bottles of prosecco down, Stacey goes onstage too and launches into a hilariously befuddled rendition of “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”. As mother and daughter connect, her mother tries to tutor her in a rebirth that will involve wiping out everything “cynical or self-congratulatory or promotional or performed or sold or fake” in her life. So, “everything I do”, Stacey notes. It’s the start of her road to that promised miracle.

This unusual, often surreal script by McDermott's partner Brian Watkins manages to juggle its urgent eco-message with a portrait of its troubled protagonist so that both stay in focus. He takes big though rather easy swings at the superficiality of Californian lifestyles, the people who want "too much stuff” and are hollow inside. Visiting Mark's pristine home, Stacey punchily notes, is like peeling the plastic off an Apple product; it's notable for its “total absence of printed materials”. The irreality of their language takes a pummelling too: no, says Stacey her mother isn’t “experiencing homelessness”, she is actually homeless. And she despises Mark in part because he calls people “users” and talks about his”brand” and “onboarding”. 

Watkins’ plot only seems far-fetched when you reflect on it afterwards; while it's happening it's a wild ride in just 60 minutes. It is given a perfect staging by designer Isabella Byrd and director Tyne Rafaeli. As the fire Stacey has been reporting on gains ground, the stage seems to fill with grey smoke, until she is realistically stumbling around in it, a smog both outside and inside her head. And Juilliard-trained McDermott proves ideal for the script Watkins wrote for her, both comic pratfaller and heroic lead. She reveals that there’s a fire in Stacey too, which becomes increasingly messianic as the story turns apocalyptic. How Watkins can develop this character into a hit TV series if required, I’m not sure, but his heroine is a blast to hang out with and deserves a wider audience. 

• Weather Girl at Soho Theatre until 5 April
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