Jake Mace
It’s the start of another busy work day for Sophie Bywater – appointments all afternoon and she’s dressed and ready for work, as Huddersfield’s leading ageing Dominatrix. When an unexpected arrival intervenes in her schedule, we’re thrown into a stratospherically broad mix of philosophy, lamentation, reminiscing and discussion about love, heartache, pain and suffering. Chris Brannick’s nuanced and intriguing writing meets a commanding performance from Karen Kirkup as Bywater in this high stakes romp through Nietzsche, Dante’s Inferno, corporate greed, masochism and more.
Death arrives this time in a purple polyester suit rather than under cloak and armed with scythe, as Sophie’s ‘Afterlife Facilitation Officer’, played by Brannick, in a purposeful rebranding after some lacklustre user feedback about how we face our untimely mortal ends. As Sophie begins to run down the clock on her last hours on Earth, we learn that not everything is as it seems for either character – moral conundrums and reflections abound. It’s a refreshingly hands-on script that manages to draw together weighty universal themes with an exploration of Sophie’s deep personal philosophies and stories, all done with a characteristic light-hearted touch.
In between these threads, Brannick weaves a narrative about the overwhelming corporatisation of our human experience, and how it reduces our most intimate, personal and ultimately human moments to black-and-white decisions from faceless, uncaring entities. It’s a fitting setting in which to explore Sophie’s work-life balance, where she finds meaning in her work – put simply, providing a service that sees the corporate ego of rich men thwarted by their overwhelming desires. References to philosophers across the ages are lightweight in exploration but neither performer nor script ever comes across as daunted by the existential weight which Love Hurts endures over its concise fifty minute run time.
Kirkup’s formidable portrayal of Sophie is equal parts empowering as it is touching and endearing, especially as the latter moments wrap up the show’s loose threads into a neat ending. Bywater is a wholly believable and commanding character, and there’s something so unique about the choice of setting for this story that adds vibrancy to every story moment. The neatness of the piece’s ending somewhat belies the grandeur of the themes explored, and while we see an unexpected future in these character’s lives, Love Hurts lacks a big takeaway question for the audience.
There were moments in my showing where Brannick and Kirkup fell into each other’s sentences a little, and visibly threw them a little off-track. As a revival of an old plot which Two Foolish had previously explored in a different format, the new version inevitably has kinks to be ironed out, but it certainly makes up for it in stature, quirkiness, and in how it packs huge ideas into a tight timeframe, with vigour, frivolity, and buckets of charm.
Recommended Drink: Pair Love Hurts with a BDSM cocktail.
Performances of Love Hurts have now concluded at Dundee Fringe 2025.
Image Credit: Peter Williams
Lamesha Ruddock
Jasmine Silk
