PLAY REVIEW: To Do Lists ★★★

Written and performed by Amy Lever, To Do Lists traces a life shaped by ambition, with childhood expectations, academic success and the relentless business of becoming the person she thinks she ought to be. Then comes grief, and with it the uncomfortable realisation that no amount of planning can ever amount to the pain that you may hold for loved ones disappearing.

Lever is an engaging performer, moving between comedy and stark vulnerability. They take us on a whistle stop journey from school exams to Cambridge, where she became a writer, gradually revealing the darker side of a life focused solely on achievement. Powered through by creative captioning, text on screen becomes a visual language with imagery weaving the live on stage performance.

Overall, To Do Lists is both simple and quietly devastating. What if the things we measure, with achievement and completion, are preventing us from really living our lives without structure holding us back.