Beginning in the first Covid-19 Lockdown of 2020, an audience would be forgiven for approaching this play with a tentative unease about taking themselves back to a period that we would all sooner forget. Whilst Alix Addinall’s script has the ability to bring its audience back to that time with striking relatability, it is through the safety of small moments as the play never departs from a single bed. In what is clearly a very personal account of the pandemic, Addinall holds up a mirror to all of us, and there is something special and theatrically interesting in the play’s recognition of its universality.

“Addinall holds up a mirror to all of us”

Millennium Baby tells the story of Robin (Imogen Woods-Wilford), on her stolen gap year as Lockdown halts ordinary life. Despite her mother’s (Edith Stewart) well meaning attempts to get her out of bed, Robin struggles with the mental toll that isolation takes in the claustrophobia of her cluttered room. Trying to hold on to memories of school and her friends, time rushes by all too quickly as Robin finds herself at university without properly digesting the insanity of a world locked down.

Addinall’s writing is at its best capturing the sweet mundanity that we lost in Lockdown. The chemistry between Robin and her friends Carla (Amenie Groves), Hannah (Megan Conlon), and Jake (Yaz O’Mahoney) is undeniably likeable, and their conversations were comfortingly familiar, as if they had been plucked straight out of a uni room. In many ways, the play stages a sequence of snapshots amongst big headlines and global events. Having these as backdrops to such quiet, small moments of friendship, was all the more effective.

“Very few topics would unite an audience as much as the ones explored in Millennium Baby”

Where the play lacked, then, was in its times lacking subtlety. Occasionally the string formed between the 2016 events of Brexit and the Trump election next to the events of 2020 felt strained. There are very few topics that would unite an audience as much as the ones explored in Millennium Baby, but sometimes it felt like the dramatic potential was not completely taken up. At times, it did not feel like it did more than let us see into the past as the audience were hit over the head with blaring dramatic irony.

Inmogen’s portrayal of the depressed, stuck and afraid Robin was one of emotional complexity and hearts broke for her as she struggled to let herself back into a society learning to heal and move on: ‘maybe I don’t fear the world but I fear myself in it’. Another stand out performance came from love interest Freya (Flossie Adrian). Providing the play with a much needed cool calmness, their loving patience and earnest conversation at Robin’s bedside gave the show a powerful intimacy, giving Robin the best reason to forget the outside world.

“Shows us how to find comfort in those around us”

Director Mel Hamilton used the tricky space of the Corpus Playroom well, and managed to maintain pace and energy in a play that takes place entirely on a bed. Again, it was successful in the moments it created. The fleeting scene of the friends on facetime when they cannot meet in person was demonstrated with characters sitting in the audience. Lit by phone screens, their absence was felt on stage as only their voices were heard. This successfully created the not-quite-the-same feeling of socialising over video calls. This is a sophisticated and provocative example of the dramatic potential that these themes can allow for.

Though the play ties itself firmly to specific points in the past, the exploration of how we navigate our own lives in a world filled with fear and chaos is an idea that did not leave with Covid. Maybe that uncertainty never leaves, but Millennium Baby shows us how to find comfort in those around us.

Millenium Baby is on at the Corpus Playroom from the 18th to the 21st October.