Abbie Murphy: Girl on Fire @ The Counting House

In a Towie-tainted world, you’d be forgiven for thinking an hour spent in Stephanie Vange’s bedroom would be a nightmare; a tanned-in-the-wool Essex girl with a penchant for truncating words, proudly flaunting every tacky stereotype Pandora’s-boxed into the world by pseudo-reality tv. Yet, Girl on Fire breathes life into a tired concept. Abbie Murray is a talented actress, and wins the audience’s laughs with her totes amaze’ representation of a bleach blond Estuary-English ‘babe’.

The attic space of the Counting House Free Fringe is transformed into a bra-littered bedroom, among the St. Tropez, hairspray and pink detritus, the hour is a committed one-woman soliloquy on boys, Marbs and white girl problems. The laughs are forthcoming, prompted by perfect mannerisms and cleverly-place malapropisms, though the looser structure of the narrative lacks a little punch. Visually, it’s a treat. The sight gags elicit the biggest giggles of the hour, including some dangerous dance moves, and the best underwear hack for the under-endowed sext selfie addict.

It almost feels wrong to laugh at a show which pokes fun at such an oddly lionised lifestyle, but Murray’s skill lies in her ability to culturally caricature without being derogatory.She has great potential as a character comic – with a little more joke engineering, she really will be on fire.