A Small Enclosed Room with Alfie Murphy

A rockstar - the kind who rubs shoulders with Lily Allen and Mike Skinner - hits rock bottom, travels to India, and becomes a spiritual guru. Sounds cliché, doesn’t it? Well this story is anything but.

Presented by Access All Areas, a theatre company run by autistic and learning disabled artists, A Small Enclosed Room with Alfie Murphy is a darkly comic exploration of the fantasy worlds our protagonist escapes to when he feels trapped in a society not built for him. Through musical numbers, interviews, and even shark attacks, we begin to uncover what lies behind the mask he wears for the world.

Cian Murphy is Alfie, who we meet discussing his autobiography with white sheet-adorned Anna Constable as his (literal) ghost writer. As they begin to piece together his story, he introduces us to the various personas he has taken on throughout his life, from lead lyricist of the successful band the ‘Camden Stoners’ to a yogi leader revered across the globe.

Anna takes on various forms in his recital story, one moment she is his confident band member Aofie, next she’s his partner Yasmin, and then she’s a cow. One of the most powerful moments of the play is when she gets fed up with morphing into whatever Alfie needs for his fantasy. This serves as a metaphor for autistic women’s disproportional pressure to conform to others' expectations of them.

This phenomenon, otherwise known as masking, is a common coping mechanism for autistic people and is a central theme of the performance. It’s nuances like this gender difference when navigating these topics that can only really be achieved with neurodiverse talent running through the entire production.

In the climax of the show, Alfie is forcefully confronted with how he has blurred the lines between delusion and reality. Panic ensues as his masks unravel, and he has to face the vulnerability of showing his true past and current self, letting us into the more difficult sides of growing up autistic.

Despite its depth, though, it manages to be very funny. It's easy to see why Cian and Alfie are both so well-revered on the theatre circuit, they’re both insanely likeable and have the comic timing to get laughs even in the most emotional moments. With shark costumes, cardboard cut-outs, adding to the fun, ‘A Small Enclosed Room with Alfie Murphy’ gleefully dismantles clichés about neurodiversity, one bonkers scene at a time.

The production is touring details here.