Emotionally stunted, puerile, disingenuous and selfish, FUDGEY is the monstrous creation of Gaulier-trained actor Tom Greaves, whose play Tom Greaves: FUDGEY also presents the creation (and destruction) of his character.
FUDGEY is the product of the boarding school system, the creation of seven-year-old Thomas Fudge, as a survival tactic in that harsh environment. Greaves fervently jumps between characters, giving the piece all the intensity of a man living behind a façade he is too afraid to drop. He gleefully manages his audience's discomfort with generosity and the occasional complicit nod that this will all be okay—though at points, it's unclear if he is trying to reassure us or himself!
Although it is brilliantly satirical, it is not just a straightforward riff on the emotionally stunted, impulsive narcissism common to adults that have been through this system—the ones that end up precipitously running the country. It also drives us to understand that it is the system itself and the entrenched attitudes within it that give rise to that behaviour and actually cause real harm to those individuals.
Greaves understands this all too well, as FUDGEY delicately walks the line between reality and fiction, with some of the details drawn from his own experiences and the subsequent mental health crises he has suffered as an adult.
The result is a well-crafted bouffon performance full of empathy, playfulness, affection, shock and awe. This is a promising debut, which should put Tom Greaves firmly on the comedy map—his mother would be proud!