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Odds Are

 
Esther Review by Esther 3 Published: 21 Aug 2025 Assembly Roxy Show Dates: 30 Jul 2025-25 Aug 2025

Smita Russell’s one-woman show Odds Are takes us through the impacting story of her desperate attempt to find meaning in the inexplicable, by way of “myth, maths, medicine and memory.”

Russell’s ability to inject humour into Odds Are is admirable, but it is still a heady hour

Russell holds court in the intimate Roxyboxy at Assembly Roxy, slowly stripping away items of clothing as she recounts how she has been pregnant nine times but experienced seven losses. She suffers from excessive nausea “like Kate Middleton” and during one pregnancy, doctors discover she has a chorionic haematoma, like her downstairs neighbour – but their babies survive and Russell’s do not. Two years in a row, she loses two babies on the same date: New Year’s Eve. “What are the odds?”

Her medical diagnosis of “just bad luck” does not hold weight for someone who so values maths and science. Russell consults specialists and mathematicians as she grapples with the question “why me?” She even emails astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who replies, but she never answers him. “I ghosted Neil deGrasse Tyson ‘cause I was an asshole,” she quips.

Russell’s ability to inject humour into Odds Are is admirable, but it remains a heady hour, heavy with subject matter, statistics, science, and Greek mythology. She shares how writing her story has helped, as has making peace with myth and science coexisting. She ends by asking if hers is a story “of bad luck or good?” We are still not sure, but it is a deeply moving one nonetheless.

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The Blurb:

Ever feel like the universe has it in for you? Acclaimed storyteller Smita Russell unpacks a real-life mystery full of misfortune and truths stranger than fiction. Blending myth, medicine, math and memory, she explores what happens when science fails us, and we're left to take control of our own story. It's autobiographical, but never predictable: a sharp, genre-defying solo show that finds humour in heartbreak and meaning in chaos. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll shout, 'Oh hell no! What did you do?!' And you'll learn that, sometimes, what nearly breaks us becomes the story that saves us.