In Rita Lynn: Life Coach (the drug related pun is real), Louise Marwood gives a performance of electrifying desperation as Imogen Wood, an actress with a cocaine habit who stumbles on a lucrative sideline alter ego as a fake life coach.
Marwood plays her partner in addiction demonically, with a Bill Sikes cockney drawl, with lighting to match. She stumbles on a rich household in Hampstead for a job interview, finds a vulnerable potential client and has a fiendish eureka moment.
This is vulnerable stuff, written by the performer and based on her real lived experiences. And her performance is compelling. She has a magnetic stage presence, but sometimes the material feels slightly thin and the subject has been covered with more sophistication by the current West End sensation People, Places and Things.
Marwood engagingly conjures the toxic characters in her life, including family members and friends. The material feels a bit underdeveloped, and in this version very brief, but it is a brave and raw experience.