Review: Doris Day – Charged, Soho Theatre

Part of the Charged season at Soho Theatre

“You make people think women like me, who’ve tried f**king hard, don’t belong in the police force”

An intriguing final piece for Charged 2 from EV Crowe, Doris Day, pits two young police officers with different outlooks on their experience in the force against each other as they clash over the way women are perceived in that institution, acceptable traits of behaviour and the survival strategies they each have in place. In the macho world of the police, they’ve both been the victim of harassment and sexism but choose to deal with it in mightily different ways with considerably different ramifications for each.

Rebecca Scroggs as the more determined of the two to tough it out presents a convincing argument of the benefits of gritting the teeth and taking one for the team as it were, but Crowe’s writing (soon to be seen too at the Royal Court Upstairs in Kin) carefully shows us a range of viewpoints and allows Emma Noakes’ Daisy to defend her different way of policing and her choices to challenge the sexism she has experienced even though it forced her into a transfer to another police force and thus garnered her a bit of reputation.

Their debates peel away the fronts they put up to their colleagues and their loved ones, revealing the stresses they’re both under, though in scratching the surface, it did leave one wanting more.

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