Search

Saved articles

You have not yet added any article to your bookmarks!

Browse articles

GDPR Compliance

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service.

Perfect Little Flirt

 
Nicholas Abrams Review by Nicholas Abrams 3 Published: 5 May 2026 thirteen Show Dates: 1 May 2026-2 May 2026

There’s a particular kind of bravery in reading your teenage diary out loud to a room full of strangers. Not paraphrasing it, not shaping it into something neater or more theatrical, but presenting it as it was: earnest, contradictory, and often unintentionally hilarious. Perfect Little Flirt leans fully into that impulse and, for much of its runtime, it is both excruciating and very funny.

Funny, uncomfortable and sharply observed, even if it never quite finds its shape

Sal Fothergill’s show is built around her real diaries from the early 2000s, written when she was 14. These entries form the backbone of the piece, interspersed with commentary and the occasional visual aid. The material is, in many ways, doing the heavy lifting. Teenage Sal is a compelling writer, even if she did not intend to be, and there is a sharp comic pleasure in revisiting her obsessions, anxieties, and throwaway remarks with adult hindsight.

Some moments land particularly well. Recollections of school productions, awkward social encounters, and shopping trips dominated by H&M feel both specific and widely recognisable. Lines that might once have passed without comment now draw laughter for their bluntness or misplaced confidence. There is also a more uncomfortable thread running through the diaries, touching on perfectionism and disordered eating, which adds texture and a sense of honesty to the piece.

The difficulty lies less in the material itself and more in what the show is trying to do with it. For much of the runtime, it is essentially a sequence of diary readings and reflections. This is engaging in the moment, but it is not always clear what larger argument or narrative is being constructed. Not every entry lands, and the shape of the show begins to feel loose.

In its final minutes, the piece pivots towards broader social commentary, touching on patriarchy, media influence, and the pressures placed on young girls. The seeds of this are present throughout, particularly in the image of the diary itself, branded with the phrase “perfect little flirt”. However, the transition feels abrupt. The earlier material has not quite been marshalled into a structure that supports this conclusion, and so the ending lands with less clarity than it might.

There is, however, something fitting in that uncertainty. Late in the show, Fothergill reflects on the difficulty of making the piece, and the decision to simply write it and accept whatever judgement follows. That same openness carries through the performance.

There is a lot here that is enjoyable, and plenty that resonates. It is funny, uncomfortable, and sharply observed. It just does not quite cohere into a fully realised whole.

Related to this article:

Location:

Performances

The Blurb:

"16th March 2003, 11:40pm Note to self: A NEW START! Here I am born again, to live again to try again to start again. The old me is dead and on the stroke of midnight, I will be reborn." Perfect Little Flirt is a chaotic and hilarious ride into Sal’s actual teenage diary — unfiltered, gender confused and deeply earnest. Come for the mega highs and desperate lows, stay for the absurd social commentary that comes with being socialised as an early-2000s “good girl.” Expect excrutiatingly dull lists, so much “getting off” and a relatable dose of cringe. With joy and sorrow, the show cracks open the diary as a tool of gendered self-surveillance and asks what it really costs to be the Perfect Little Flirt.