Sh*t Life Crisis – Hull Truck Theatre

Writer: Olivia Hannah

Director: Alex Mitchell

Grace (Florence Odumosu) is in her late 20s and has just been diagnosed with cancer. Abbie (Madeleine MacMahon) is the estranged childhood best friend who crashes back into her life because she knows exactly what is coming for Abbie, having beaten it herself. Sh*t Life Crisis doesn’t pull it’s punches right from the very start, but it does tell their story via the medium of dark humour and karaoke. You’ll sing, you’ll bark with laughter, and you’ll probably sob a little bit too.

Odumosu is immediately engaging as Grace, punctuating her passion and her determination with frantic gestures and direct audience eye contact. She gives us happiness, she gives us fear, she gives us righteous anger. As the narrator of the piece she guides the story and builds the highs and lows of the show wonderfully. MacMahon is an astonishing character actress, switching from the frenetic and lovable Abbie, to vapid other friends, caring medical professionals and old ladies, and a range of disastrous Tinder dates. Her use of physicality and voice to create characters is like watching a masterclass in the art. As a duo, the pair are a joy to watch, and their chemistry on stage is electric.

That stage, designed by Caitlin Macwhinney, is beautiful as well. A cuboid dive bar stage with projected lyrics so that the audience can sing along to the karaoke tracks (as you are encouraged to do so). Lighting from Adam Foley transforms it from nightclub, to sterile hospital room, to daytime park at a lightning pace, and the soundtrack from Anna Pearson is, as the girls themselves say, ‘banging’. Add in Macwhinney’s perfectly rendered cardboard set pieces and props, two heart embellished fur coats, and a whole lot of glitter and it’s like the 90s and early 00s threw up and came back to dance.

It’s a show about strong female friendship in the face of crisis, about coping with the hard times. Hannah’s script is genius, never making light of what is an undeniably dark subject, but still managing to crack side splitting jokes and poke fun at the world in which cancer exists, rather than at the people coping with it. Prepare for an emotional whirlwind that will break you and build you back up, glued together with hope. Sh*t Life Crisis is a must see call to appreciate your life – a somber topic stuffed full of heart and soul and laughter. And the odd post chemo Wotsit Foldy (“Bread, Wotsits, fold in half”).

Runs until 25 July 2026