Writer: Mollie Semple
Director: Kayla Stokes
Stories about young women driven by self-loathing often have patriarchal roots as they reflect on the pressures of body image, attractiveness and worth measured by male-based relationships, so it’s really interesting to see Mollie Semple’s new piece Good For Her!, which excludes men entirely from a story that looks at how women make each other feel. Staged at The Other Palace, this 75-minute monologue directed by Kayla Stokes is a character study about a brittle self-obsession that hides deeper wells of inadequacy, constant comparison and a strand of toxic motherhood that shapes the protagonist.
Iris knows she is destined to be a star, a wannabe actor whose experience on an American soap as a child isn’t bearing fruit back in the UK. Now in her 20s, Iris obsesses over the Instagram feed of former classmate Alice, constantly reassuring herself that she was always cast in the lead in school plays and was considered more beautiful. When her pushy mother gets sick, Iris’s frustration starts to implode.
Semple’s creation of character is this monologue’s strongest asset: someone who is narcissistic, selfish and often cruel, deluded even about herself, while still tragic. However much the audience wants to dismiss Iris as lightweight or even sometimes vacuous, Semple undercuts her less gracious characteristics with a deeper understanding of the pressure of growing up in her beautiful mother’s shadow and on the sharp end of her critical tongue. Mum, voiced by Jacquette May, endlessly criticises Iris’ weight, physical shape and life choices. The cumulative pressure of that is often revealed through gritted teeth, with rifts and resentment filtering through the story, but this feeling of constant competition, years of endlessly comparing herself to her friends, celebrities of her own age like Sydney Sweeney and to her mother is clearly eroding.
Playing Iris, Semple’s performance is filled with a thin bravado; seemingly a confident, self-assured young woman at first au fait with using social media platforms to promote herself and with a clear trajectory in mind for the future. But as the performance evolves chronologically, the certainty in Semple’s approach feels painted on, the dead-ends and missed opportunities pile up and Iris’ fear, her co-dependency with her mother and self-sabotage develop their own blackly comic momentum.
Later in Good For Her! the story begins to strain as caring responsibilities require a more dramatic conclusion than perhaps the material warrants. While there is no need for the character to ‘improve’ or develop greater empathy for others – in fact it is rather refreshing that she remains determinedly self-obsessed throughout – the inevitability of the ending Semple chooses is signalled far too soon, where perhaps something less unlikely would give Iris an ending she has earned, vindicating the inner sadness the audience has been shown.
Contemporary technology is a key device, revealing Iris’ search history often to hilarious effect, adding that additional insight into the frightened and lost young woman she has become with little life beyond herself to champion. And this is a play without a man’s view, no father, no boyfriend, no male friends to shift how Iris feels, only seeing herself through the eyes of women and the continual rejection that determines her every thought.
Runs until 26 July 2026
