Millennial tension

Whelp

Smock Alley Theatre

**

They go by many names: “the Boomerang generation”, spinning back to the full fridges of home; the “Peter Pans” who can neither grow up nor move on; or, in this case, “Red” and “Yellow”, two unemployed, TV-addled young women whose characterisations go no deeper than their hair colour. In a retro shopping-channel skit, they share a cardboard-cut-out flat, mired in debt. In a reverse Wizard-of-Oz trajectory, they return to the monochrome security of home. At a party dependent on audience-interaction, they dismally outline their career prospects (“I get to put my drama experience to good use”).

These dizzy devices are slathered in self-deprecating irony (Red defends her independence while demanding to be spoon-fed), but by simply mirroring two petulant protagonists, the production itself seems entirely self-involved. Adults here are merely embarrassing or haranguing figures. Any generational concern as painful as idleness or emigration is blithely unconsidered. Never seeking the counterpoint of another perspective, Whelp tells you nothing interesting about stunted Millennials, and, worse still, suggests they have nothing interesting to say.

Ends Sept 13