Simon Ward reviews FLUSH at the Arcola Theatre

Writer and performer April Hope Miller and director Merle Wheldon bring their 2025 Edinburgh Fringe Festival hit, FLUSH, to the Arcola for a month-long run. The set-up is deceptively simple. Taking place over one evening in the lavatory of a nightclub, all human life is here, often in its most vulnerable and uninhibited state. Four actors (April Hope Miller herself, Ayesha Griffiths, Miya Ocego and Joanna Strafford) deftly conjure up an array of different characters between them, showing us how many different things a night out can mean. There is an awkward work do, which someone has insisted has to be fancy dress. There are a couple of underage drinkers who are taking their first terrifiyingly exhilarating steps into the adult world. Strangers console each other over terrible dates. Drugs are ill-advisedly shared. Friends struggle to connect the way they used to. Someone is trying to come to terms with her sexuality. And there is, of course, a garishly pink set of garlanded hens.

Like a still point at the heart of this maelstrom is Billie (Jazz Jenkins). Not long in the UK from her native America, she is at the work do and trying hard to fit in. It is her dream job but the social side of things is not quite working out for her. Her colleagues are full of in-jokes and already-formed cliques which she can’t quite penetrate. The only one who actually seems to notice her, or to understand her hastily assembled costume, is their boss, Dominic. Unfortunately, she is too far out of the loop to hear the warnings of her fellow workmates.

There are many home truths here, but also a lot of laughter. The hen do is relentlessly hilarious – we seriously wonder whether the bride will make it to her wedding day unscathed. The under-agers are sweetly funny; we also see how the silliest acts of unkindness in childhood can have long lasting after effects. There is a lovely interplay between the anxieties of the younger women and their slightly older counterparts – they may be older but they are not necessarily any wiser.

Ellie Wintour’s set is a garish mash-up of electric colours and grimy toilets. Three cubicles are lined up in front of us, the walls covered in grafitti but the loos apparently serviceable enough, and thankfully plenty of toilet paper. Above each seat is a single neon strip light – used to great effect by lighting designer Jack Hathaway in the scenes where the club itself seems to invade the bathroom space – the actors writhe and the music of Aaron Miller and Rob Wheatley fill the room. This is what the women are seeking sanctuary from, but can never quite escape. This, too, seems to represent Billie’s horrendous trip after accidentally taking ketamine. None of the promised release mechanisms seem to work. In the end, the only thing that might have a chance of doing so is an act of simple solidarity – the gift of sitting and listening, without judgment but with compassion. Which is a beautifully fitting point for this brilliant, utterly compelling show to conclude.

FLUSH is running at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, London E8 3DL, until Saturday 6th June