Review written for Female Arts Magazine at the Edinburgh Festival fringe 2015.
Jess and Juno have nothing in common. Flung together by the passing of their best friend Rose, the show illustrates their journey through grief as they both try to come to terms with her death. Constantly meeting each other in tense situations, the two characters politely dance around different subjects until one of them explodes with anger or leaves in a rage. An intense and very realistic show, Eggs shows the dark side of death, that horrible period of time way before the life affirming road trips and unexpected yet reassuring signs from the beyond start to happen. The stone cold grief of those left behind.
Florence Keith Roach’s portrayal of Jess, the dog walking, pill popping, starving artist child of the 90’s feels effortless on her part. Her ability to have the audience in a fit of giggles one minute and then shut down in stunned silence the next was quite an emotion wrenching part of her character. As the writer of this play her brilliant wit and ability to bring realism to a story shine through showing us her expert skills in yet another area.
Playing her polar opposite, Juno, is Amani Zardoe, actor and creator of popular webs series Offstage. The supposedly sensible one of the two, she tries to support Jess (to no avail) whilst juggling a full time, high stress job. Her transformation from being a highly ambitious, success driven career woman to an emotional mess is one that many of us will recognise.
As these two women fight to survive through their sadness by trying to find partners, drinking, and reliving their youth through a 90’s dance routine, you really do begin to feel for them. An excellent portrayal of the different ways in which we all deal with death, grief and more importantly life, Eggs is both realistic yet uplifting. A truly great depiction of friendship prevailing in the hardest of times.