MY FRIENDS SAY I SHOULD ACT MY AGE (WHAT'S MY AGE AGAIN?) is not a catchy title for a play. Fitzpatrick Hall’s tiny black-box studio is not a conventional theatre. It’s pretty unusual to actually see someone shave their legs on stage. The script’s complete, self-conscious devotion to depicting the  tribulations of being a young woman trying to write a play is pretty on the nose. It might seem like we’re off to a bad start. We’re not; we’re just off to an unconventional start.

Student playwright Katya Stylianou’s script begins with 23-year-old Toni. It’s Friday night, and the one-woman-show her parents have been funding in order to kickstart an acting career starts on Monday. She hasn’t written the script yet. Toni has spent her life hiding her insecurities behind her big, dramatic personality, so writing something honest seems pretty impossible. She wants it to be "funny and relatable, and a little bit heartbreaking." It almost is.

"A lot of us have been Toni:  a bit scared of love, quite scared of failing, a lot like we always say the wrong thing, and to top it off, just a bit boring"

Some audience members might have left wondering what made Toni special (or worthy of a 75 minute play). Why should we care about her failing acting career, or her overwhelming tendency to respond inappropriately to anything even remotely sexual. She’s very normal. I do, however, respect the script’s premise. A lot of us have been Toni:  a bit scared of love, quite scared of failing, a lot like we always say the wrong thing, and to top it off, just a bit boring. If you’ve felt those things, then you will find something of yourself in this play.

Toni, played by Olivia Khattar, spends a lot of time on stage alone, and these moments of isolation are the best the play has to offer. Khattar does some of the most convincing acting I’ve seen in Cambridge; you want to check she’s okay after the play ends. The way she moves around the stage makes us forget that this is a set, not her bedroom.  She takes Stylianou’s script and makes it entirely her own. Co-directors Maddy Power and Maia von Malaisé have curated a believable character in Toni. The careful detail and nuance of their direction of her character do not go unnoticed.

"Khattar does some of the most convincing acting I’ve seen in Cambridge; you want to check she’s okay after the play ends"

Toni is accompanied by her best friend, Michaela (Rosa Savage). Savage occupies her role admirably, but I was left wishing the script allowed  more room for her character. Michaela  functions to trigger Toni’s crises about ventures in love and theatre. She’s an object of comparison, and not a lot more.

Likewise, when we meet Niko (Rafael Griso Dryer), we are constantly aware of his role: slightly awkward, slightly complicated love interest. The play affords him more purpose than Michaela, but his character remains one dimensional. That’s not to overlook Griso Dryer’s admirable performance; his comedic timing is immaculate, and I must commend his commitment to the second half’s crazed dance routine.

The play claims that it is ‘not really a love story’, but rather a ‘story about love’.  I wish that were true. The play is, in spite of itself, a love story. I longed for Toni to find herself without falling in love. Her monologue at the end of the play claims explicitly that it's not that she needed Niko to help find, and love, herself. But it is. In spite of Toni’s depth, Niko is the catalyst of her journey, and I found that a bitter shame.

That being said, the play is fun. It goes by quickly because Toni and Niko have a beautiful chemistry that is so incredibly easy to watch. The set is perfectly and chaotically simple, and the tech team have done a stunning job in such a restrictive venue. It’s testament to what Cambridge’s theatre scene affords theatre makers; it’s acutely personal, and it is funny and relatable, just not quite heartbreaking.

MY FRIENDS SAY I SHOULD ACT MY AGE (WHAT'S MY AGE AGAIN?) is showing at Queens' College Fitzpatrick Hall until Friday 23 February.