That Fila Ray Feeling, written and directed by Anna Freys, centres on the identity crisis of its main character, Freya (Emily Webster), as she struggles with her purchase of Fila Ray shoes in a misguided attempt to fit in, and manages to constitute a wacky and entertaining half-hour.

Webster certainly has the charisma, energy and stage presence to carry a show like this, in which one character is required to shoulder so much. While some of her lines were a tad rushed, and therefore I didn’t actually catch all of her dialogue, throughout all her monologues she succeeded in maintaining an atmosphere of excitement and seemed absolutely comfortable in the space. Being essentially a one-woman show, Webster is undeniably the star here, though that’s not to say the supporting cast didn’t have their moments to shine. Marina McCready pulled off a perfect impression of everyone’s posh but rude uni friend, and for me, her moments were among the funniest in the show. Macky Padilla and Luis Almonacid were perfectly cast, with both providing humour as the annoying friend Tom and the slightly sad but endearing nerd Max respectively.

The script’s greatest asset was its ability to capture a strong sense of character (especially within the supporting cast, where even those with only a couple of lines felt well-defined), and it succeeds more at this than it does at delivering punchlines or eliciting big laughs. I found the show entertaining overall, and even laughed out loud a couple of times, but I couldn’t help feeling that a chunk of the potential humour was rather drowned by the wordiness of the script, particularly the monologue sections. It’s perhaps a case of needing further refinement to really draw out the humour from the (undeniably funny and imaginative) material. The core concept of That Fila Ray Feeling has a lot of potential for comedy, and I feel like more could have been done to really get the most out of it.

The show pokes fun at the awkwardness of many social encounters at university and the turmoil we go through as we try to discover who we ‘really are’.

The lighting and sound were perfectly adequate and unremarkable, but what does definitely deserve a mention is an audiovisual section near the end, projected onto the walls of the Corpus Playroom. I won’t spoil its content, but it was definitely one of the funniest moments of the show, demonstrating a real comic imagination and an ability to isolate the core of the joke and express it in its most potent form – something that would have done well to spill over into the rest of the script.

Ultimately, I had a good time with That Fila Ray Feeling. The show shone when it poked fun at the awkwardness of many social encounters at university and the turmoil we go through as we try to discover who we ‘really are’. Much of it felt like a group of friends having fun on stage, and there were definitely some aspects that were a little under-polished, but the nature of the show was such that both of these points only added to the charm. While the show could have been spruced up in some areas to ensure that more jokes landed as intended, the show is certainly an enjoyable short-and-sweet midweek experience, and I look forward to seeing what Freys writes next.