Writer: Julia Grogan
Director: Rachel Lemon
There’s something about the pomposity of actors, particularly those actors who have yet to start on the career path they clearly think they deserve, that is ripe for satirisation, particularly in fringe theatre. Maybe it’s because the writers and performers in the space have encountered so many such individuals; maybe, just maybe, they recognise a part of themselves.
Julia Grogan’s latest creation is one such performer. “Miss June” is a woman who believes she is destined for greatness, to finally be free of her stopgap role teaching “baby ballet” to preschoolers in a Methodist church hall. When she finally receives what she believes will be her big break, she tells her boss to shove the job – only to have to grovel when it turns out that her role was only ever “pencilled”, and the production team have gone in another direction.
As June sheepishly returns to the dance class and begins training her young charges for the end-of-term “sharing” recital, Grogan’s conversations with the imaginary tots have a whiff of a modern-day reinterpretation of Joyce Grenfell, whose own monologues as a kindergarten teacher often included instructing them in dance. But while Grenfell’s comedy was founded in trying to maintain order amidst toddler chaos, Grogan’s comes from June’s determination to make her charges an extension of her own lust for perfection. Berating charges for not being able to point their feet as well as she can, or passing judgment on their weight, turns what could be caustic comments into comedic pleasure because it comes from June’s own delusions about her ability.
Outside of the classroom, Grogan’s character interacts with adults with the same level of disdain. From the pharmacist who she went to school with (and who June looks down upon for never having ambition to move away from their home town) to the organiser of the addiction meeting that uses the hall after baby ballet is over, Grogan delights in showing us interactions with people who bear no ill will toward June, but who receive nothing but scorn in return.
All this would be unbearable if June were actually as unlikeable and intolerable as she is smug and scornful. Instead, Grogan lets us see the layer of vulnerability around which her character has built such a hard shell. As the end-of-term sharing approaches, and June gets ever more hyper when she realises that one parent who will be in attendance is a hotshot Netflix producer, Grogan grounds June’s increasing desperation to be noticed, to escape, in an understandable level of insecurity. Creating a character as monstrous as June while still making us root for her is a delicate balancing act, but it’s a line that Grogan treads with skill and apparent ease.
Flashes of surrealism pepper the 70-minute piece, with Anisha Fields’s deceptively simple set design having a few tricks up its sleeve to elevate such moments. Miss June may not be the real deal, but You’re So Special proves that Julia Grogan certainly is.
Runs until 26 September 2026
