Nan, me and Barbara Pravi by Hannah Maxwell – Stanley Arts, London

Hannah Maxwell’s single-handed show is a beautifully structured piece of fringe theatre, combining the personal and the confessional while making it seem new and different – quite an achievement. Maxwell is deeply charming, cultured and slightly aloof, at least at first. She is in control, and we believe her implication that she once worked for the security services – she seems like the kind of person who easily might. Of course, it is an illusion – no-one, after all, is really in control. Moving in with her grandparents in Luton to look after her dying grandfather, and then her widowed nan, has left her suspended between duty and the London life she has left behind, with its big highs and deep lows. Watching Eurovision with her nan leads a stalkerish obsession with French singer Barbara Pravin, which is both funny and believable. The show is about working these things through.

Maxwell has the audience in the palm of her hand from the start, instantly sympathetic. Crucially though, she can also surprise. Her staging is a neat balance between clever and silly, and never gratuitous – making Oat So Simple in collaboration with the audience, managing her nan’s medication via a giant pill organiser, delivering a final killer ballad in French – are cleverly judged. She plays with the contrast between her artistic life as a gay woman in London, and the suburban family background that is also part of her, whatever her instinct to deny it. She delivers a powerfully understated show about identity, happiness and the importance of connecting between generations. She also concludes that being an obsessive fan is probably not a good thing, which is good life advice for us all. Maxwell is a fringe favourite for a very good reason: she makes the complete shows that so many performers aspire to, but which are so difficult to pull off.