February 28, 2025 Sour Cream and Dill
The lovely Charlie Mulliner has returned to Tallinn with her latest show, Love Hunt, a character-driven romp through the ups and downs of finding and keeping The One. I missed her last tour, with Revelations, but with two more shows at Heldeke! this weekend, you still have the chance to see this phenomenal new one-woman show.The entire pre-show experience is delightfully soundtracked, and from the outset Mulliner makes excellent use of the entire space, not just the stage. We first meet the star of our show, a charming everywoman character named Amber, just after her boyfriend of ten years walks out on her. She’s the sweet, baffling kind of woman with the kind of storybook romance that reads a bit more like a true crime novel – or at least, the kind of love story that makes me ask “Are the straights okay?” It might almost have seemed overblown if I hadn’t met women just like her countless times, with tear-tracked mascara in club bathrooms as the men they date inevitably trip over the low bar set for them.I’d made a note, just before the show began, about how the audience was unafraid to sit close to the stage, a benefit perhaps of not worrying about a stand-up’s crowd work. But Mulliner’s presence and storytelling fill the room, not just the stage, and like any drunk girl in the queue for the toilets, Amber makes swift friends of audience members. What follows is a new-friend-supported journey through half a dozen characters and even more scenarios as we join Amber on her forays in the dating scene for the first time in a decade, peppered with specifically-British quips and universally-brutal truths. Careful: the entire room is the splash zone.Mulliner is electric, energetic, and incredibly athletic as she moves through the space (and space itself!) to interrogate our experiences and expectations of love. With incredible use of props and costumes, and accompanied by well-planned and -executed sound and light cues, we meet the heartbroken, the hopeful romantics, and several audience members, including couples willing to sweet talk each other, single women willing to work for it, and one dodgily-accented gentleman willing to play French for love.The lighting and sound design deserve special mention for this show, for both setting the literal scene as well as, in the case of sound, providing incredible interludes for costume and character changes. Whether looper-aided a capella covers or voice messages left for Amber by the people who populate her life, the show is absolutely enriched by their presence. When Mulliner is on stage, both sound and lighting act as her enabler and foil – the ayahuasca interlude an excellent example of how behind-the-scenes work can rise to meet onstage physicality for an incredible spectacle.For a show that requires very little in terms of set-building – a wonderfully-played touring trick – Mulliner carries the whole thing comfortably, deeply familiar with both the narratives and personalities that populate her tale, responding in the moment as each new scenario and audience interaction demands. An absolute powerhouse of a performance, don’t miss your chance to see it! Click Here For Article