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SKIN A CAT by Isley Lynn

Every teenager thinks they're the only one not having sex. But for Alana, it may well be true. She's not frigid. She really isn't. But every time she gets close to doing it something just seems to get in the way... Soon she can't help wondering: Is it this tricky for everyone else? Because no one ever said it was going to be this complicated.

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With a kaleidoscope of off-kilter characters, Skin A Cat follows Alana on an awkward sexual odyssey: from getting her first period at nine years old and freaking out her frantic mother, to watching bad porn at a house party with her best friend's boyfriend, to a painful examination by an overly cheery gynaecologist - all in the pursuit of losing her virginity and finally becoming a woman. Whatever that means...

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PRESS

The piece has an endearing unfettered honesty and it benefits enormously from a brilliantly judged, personable central performance from Lydia Larson, who ensures that Alana’s sexual odyssey always keeps the attention  The Guardian, Lyn Gardner

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Blythe Stewart’s production is a stylish, sympathetic staging of some seriously important new writing  A Younger Theatre

 

Director Blythe Stewart knows how to breathe warmth and humanity into an uncomfortable subject matter…Simulated sex scenes are fully clothed and amusingly abstracted in a clever directorial flourish that keeps the focus on the ideas in play rather than the acts depicted  Exeunt

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A witty, tender play  ★★★★   Financial Times

 

Beyond its silly and plentiful humour is a genuinely moving and effortlessly charming production … Lynn deliberately blurs the line between the clinical and the erotic. It’s born out in Blythe Stewart's intelligent direction too  ★★★★  TimeOut  

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As well as intense, purposeful and poignant, Lynn’s writing is also very, very funny. It’s that precisely balanced…A pivotal piece of contemporary theatre  ★★★★★  Miro Magazine  
 

Masterfully done…Skin a Cat is a quiet revelation…a glorious, hopeful and eye-opening experience  ★★★★  The List

 

This young woman's coming-of-age story is both heartfelt and excruciatingly funny…Skin a Cat still feels absolutely vital, the type of play I needed to see when I was 15  ★★★★  Fest Mag Review

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CREATIVES

Writer Isley Lynn 

Producer  Zoe Robinson / RIVE Productions 

Designer Holly Piggot 

Lighting Designer Harrison Routledge / Lucy Adams 

Photography Richard Lakos for The Other Richard / David Monteith-Hodge

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CAST 

Alana Lydia Larson

Man Jassa Alhuwalia / Joe Eyre 

Woman Jessica Clark / Libby Rodliffe