REVIEW: Spare Room, Blue Duck Theatre Company, EdFringe 2026 ★★★

The stage is littered with beer cans and empty packets, and five men lie sleeping, in various states of undress. A girl paces back and forwards, occasionally shouting at the audience to be quiet and begging for paracetamol or Gaviscon. She turns, trips over one of the men, swears loudly—and Spare Room begins.

Written by Georgina Housby and Sam Dinnage, Spare Room is set in a student kitchen. When Jodie (Housby) moves into the spare room of a flat, she is expecting a mixed sex flat but instead, she ends up living with Alex (William Meadowcroft), Callum (Tom David Griffiths), Jack (Matt Underhill) and Richard (Luke Dyer), whose hobbies include drinking, drugs and video games. What starts as flat bonding during a drinking session quickly turns into a sinister tale of toxic masculinity, male mental health, and consent.

While the premise is promising, the finished product falls short. After Jodie moves in and meets her flatmates, the plot gets lost in the midst of heavy drinking, drug taking and misogynistic comments disguised as banter. You are left wondering where the show is going and what the writers are trying to convey. While the content of the ending is good, it feels rushed, which is a shame because there are plenty of opportunities to expand on this earlier in the show.

There is little character development, and the characters are hard to warm to. The men have no ambition or personality, and just sit around in their flat all day. It’s not entertaining watching five grown men play video games, take drugs and make derogatory comments towards women and pick on each other in the name of “banter”. With the exception of Jack, whose storyline is an important one but comes in a rush at the end, none of the characters have any depth or plot lines of their own, which feels like a wasted opportunity considering the play’s intention to provide an honest insight into masculinity and men’s mental health.

Spare Room was pitched to me as a feminist dark comedy, but beside the theme of consent, there isn’t anything else to make it a feminist show. There are plenty of examples of how the men treat women as less than them, but these attitudes go largely unchecked and the men face no consequences for their views and actions. Jodie does push back against these views at first, particularly Alex’s arguments about body counts and female pleasure, but she does spend lots of time giggling and laughing with the group, particularly when she is drinking. Callum’s girlfriend Chloe (Polly Dennett) is the epitome of a pick me girl, showing no support to the other women in the flat. Sienna (Annabel McCusker) does seem more fiery, but she only appears briefly which is a shame as she provides lots of entertainment.

That being said, there is much to like about this show. On the whole, the actors play the roles well. Their dialogue is natural and they gel well together. Griffiths and Dennett’s chemistry in particular is extremely natural. Dyer is excellent in the role of Richard, bringing a bumbling naiveness that’s strangely endearing, and Dennett fits into her role as the pick-me girl well. Housby has stellar emotions, particularly at the end of the play. There are plenty of jokes that have the audience in stitches, and they perfectly capture aspects of student culture.

Spare Room tackles heavy, important topics around consent and male mental health that Blue Duck Theatre Company must be commended for. It is brimming with potential, and the writers could explore these themes even further by weaving more focused storylines throughout the show. The cast are extremely talented and, unlike some of their characters, they have bright careers ahead of them.

Recommended drink: beer, poured over Aldi Wotsits and consumed with a spoon.

You can catch Spare Room at Space 1 at theSpace on the Mile from 7-22 August at 17:35 (55 mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.