Piece of Me at Camden People’s Theatre

Claire Gaydon’s Piece of Me fizzes with noughties bubblegum-pink pop culture. An inseparable best-friend trio from Lincoln are introduced at age ten. Lead-singer Claire, who is Gaydon portraying herself as a child, sassy Chloe, played with note-perfect pizazz by Yaz Zadah, and nervous Natalie, performed by an adorable Alex Roberts, who frequently runs behind a piece of the set to “go for a wee”. The besties are blown away by Britney Spears’s chart-topping 1999 album Baby Hit Me One More Time, and proceed to do what any true fans must: form their own band. It is named Babyface Bland (the two Bs just work).

The trio rehearse, with surprisingly slick synchronicity, for the year six school assembly, before navigating their thorny transition to secondary school (Natalie’s parents have split up and Chloe is questionably dating a sixth-former).

A film montage backdrop of Britney Spears’s metamorphosis from innocent vocal prodigy to sexualised, CCTV-stalked global superstar poignantly mirrors Gaydon’s specific, hilarious pre-teen dialogue. At half-time, she breaks the fourth wall (a seeming signature at the Camden People’s Theatre) and explains why she wanted to put on this play at all. It turns out, real adult Claire had been involved in an incident of low level assault from a stranger at a bus stop, but no further investigation was possible, due to weakness in CCTV’s facial recognition software. Are Claire and Britney all that dissimilar, after all?

The latter section of Gaydon’s 70 minute tour-de-force spins delightfully into what fringe theatre does best: a closeup lens on the silly and the absurd. We meet Babyface Bland (which fizzled out in year nine) in the present day, with Chloe working in a pub, Natalie mainly looking after her dog, Spangles, and Claire “making it in London” as a performer. The band decide to get back together, for the hell of it, and somehow are now very successful, and navigating with the stresses of pop star fame: persistent paparazzi and revenge porn (Natalie’s choices of men have not improved with age).

The politically and culturally pertinent chaos is broken up with strongly committed dance routines, featuring essence-of-Britney choreography and movement direction from Seke Chimutengwende Olivia Shouler. The costumes are stellar: one should happily watch Piece of Me for the sheer matching mesh black t-shirts combined with outrageously clashing accessories, topped off with sweaty, determined facial expressions that come with noughties popping, locking and bopping.

Gaydon has a particularly strong physical presence throughout, with Zadah and Roberts offsetting her sturdiness with physical and dialogic humour. 

The set swivels around, and the band has disbanded once more. Now, Claire’s obsession with surveillance has led her to set up a Facial Recognition start-up, to try and understand that the people who set up the dystopian technologies that have pervasively infiltrated our lives are real – just like her, or Chloe, or Natalie.

Gaydon’s denouement could leave more for the audience to ponder on, but, along with zingy new remixes from music producer Jakwob (who has collaborated with Little Simz), the show is joyous. Piece of Me makes for intelligent, upbeat theatre, which explodes in the mind like a piece of popping candy that you might find in a Babyface Bland member’s tweenage party bag.

Ellen Wilkinson
Images: Harry Elletson

Piece of Me is at Camden People’s Theatre until 1^st June 2024. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.

Watch the trailer for Piece of Me here: