Anna Burnside reviews the return of the award-winning production.
When Douglas Maxwell’s black comedy of manners arrived at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024, Covid was fresh in our minds. Now that its privations and horrors have faded, So Young could feel dated.
Middle aged teacher Milo’s wife, Helen, has died, suddenly, of the virus. Three months on, before she has even had a memorial service, Milo has met Greta online, fallen in love and—as we discover in a perfectly orchestrated bombshell moment—proposed.
Greta is 20.
The play unfolds on the night that Davie and Lianne, the couple’s dearest friends, meet Greta for the first time. And what keeps it fresh is that Covid is simply a plot device to ramp up the pain and shock that Lianne is still feeling about the loss of her best friend. Which is then dialled up by Milo’s questionable life choices.
Maxwell increases the emotional temperature with more and more revelations, and Gareth Nicholls maximises the script with a pacy directorial hand.
This is basically the same show that delighted in 2024, with Robert Jack taking over the role of Milo. He inhabits the horny widower’s slightly too young DM shoes, Japanese denims and modish overshirt brilliantly.
The rest of the cast remains the same. Andy Clark and Yana Harris are well pitched - him awkward and endearingly nosy, her annoying and, well, young - but it’s Lucianne McEvoy’s rage monologues that set the stage on fire.
What a relief that So Young has not got old.
So Young performs at Citizens Theatre until November 8, 2025.
Photo by Tommy Go-Ken Wan.
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