![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/lists-Edited.jpg\")
A Sudden, Disturbing To Do List. Photo credit: Shay Rowan<\/p>\nPhoebe (Eleanor May Blackburn) likes a list, to the point where there are lists about making lists, and another list about crossing off completed items on previous lists. In some ways, therefore, the show is a difficult watch, especially as some of the lists are over-ambitious, or otherwise don\u2019t really follow all of the letters in the SMART acronym \u2013 specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. As it isn\u2019t possible to do all of the things she wants (or, apparently, needs) to do in a day, this causes inevitable self-induced frustration.<\/p>\n
A Sudden, Disturbing To Do List. Photo credit: Shay Rowan<\/p>\n
More care needed to be taken with regards to sightlines. Some of the action takes place on the floor, on a very large pink surface, which was more than a bit problematic for anyone not sat in the front row in a studio space without a rake. From where I was sat, parts of the show felt like a radio play. For instance, I only found out after the show that there was a duvet on stage, though I understood she was tucking herself in for the night from what she said. It\u2019s also \u2013 but I think this is deliberate \u2013 not the easiest of narratives to navigate, as Phoebe sometimes creates so many lists so quickly that it\u2019s all but impossible to keep up.<\/p>\n
It was, at least, a highly energetic show \u2013 I wonder if the large electric fans in the room that the venue kept running throughout the performance were more for the performer than the audience \u2013 and there was a disarming and convincing honesty about the challenges Phoebe faces. Rather than presenting a \u2018nobody cares\u2019 attitude towards her relatives, there are multiple voicemails from her concerned mother, with an increasing level of frustration as none of them are returned and all she (the mother) wants to know is if Phoebe is okay.<\/p>\n
Rather like certain comedians who talk so quickly that I couldn\u2019t follow, Phoebe bared her soul with such rapidity that it was all a blur. Perhaps it is a play for our times though, given the sheer number of younger people struggling with psychological wellbeing.<\/p>\n
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Review by Chris Omaweng<\/p>\n
Meet Phoebe: a journalist and the queen of lists. On her fridge, her whiteboard, all over her hands and\u2026 everywhere. One day a giant, fluffy monster appears under her duvet. Why then is she suddenly listening all the ways she might die?<\/p>\n
Written and performed by Eleanor May Blackburn<\/p>\n
A SUDDEN, DISTURBING TO DO LIST
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Greenside @ George Street at the Edinburgh Fringe<\/a>
11 to 23 August 2025<\/p>\n