Chip on her shoulder

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https://www.theatreworks.org.au/2025/chip-on-her-shoulder

Date Reviewed: 07/10/2025

Spoiler alert. We begin with masturbation with a bag of chips. It’s a gratuitous, self-indulgent, even awkward start, but it soon makes perfect sense as we enter the irresistibly messy world of Kate (Vanessa Buckley) in Chip on Her Shoulder. Making its world premiere at Explosives Factory, the one-woman show, written and directed by Jen McAuliffe, is raw, unfiltered, and occasionally cringeworthy, like life itself, and in the best possible way. 

Like the bottom of a crumpled chip packet, it leaves you both satisfied and slightly queasy, unsure whether to laugh, cry, or just open another bag. That’s why we’re handed chips as we enter and pelted with more as the performance goes on.

Buckley’s “Kate” is an Aussie nurse living in New York, chasing her Broadway dream while juggling grief, heartbreak, and a disturbingly co-dependent relationship with chips. You’ll lose count of how many chip bags she opens, from Cheetos to her beloved salt and vinegar. 

Chips become comfort, therapy, and emotional camouflage. Between bites, costume changes, and the occasional glow-up penis (yes, really), Kate confesses her way through the chaos of modern womanhood.

If you’re a woman in the audience, you’ll squirm and nod in recognition as the painfully real confessional unfolds. You may even get whiplash as Kate veers from funny stories about selling foot pics to pay the rent to the gut-punch of losing a loved one. Humour coexists with heartbreak, and McAuliffe’s writing lets both breathe.

Buckley’s performance is a tour de force of comedic timing. She moves seamlessly between stand-up comic and wounded confessor. Her delivery is razor-sharp, and whether she’s munching chips or silently staring into the void, she’s equally convincing in moments of laughter and quiet despair. From the horror of a bad date (“tongue like a slumbering Doberman”) to the ache of abandonment and a mother's criticism, she’s completely present.

McAuliffe’s script is compassionate and biting, exploring self-loathing, sex, and survival with humour and insight. Of women whose partners cheat, Kate quips, “We’re not stalkers, we’re detectives.” Of the modern world: “We gave the world democracy, philosophy, aqueducts, and now we’re air-frying bananas. Doom-scrolling ourselves into oblivion.” And of grief: “It’s just love turned inside out and upside down.”

The piece feels less like a performance and more like an intimate conversation with a good friend after a few glasses of wine. If there’s a flaw, it’s that the energy occasionally dips in the transitions, some emotional shifts arrive a beat too fast. But the honesty never falters.

By the end, having shared Kate’s confessions of despair and dark humour, we’re all barracking for her. Chip on Her Shoulder is a love letter not just to the mess, but to the resilience it takes to keep showing up. It’s cathartic, a reminder that sometimes the only way to face life’s absurdity is with a little salt, a lot of crunch, and the comfort of knowing you’re not falling apart alone.

Highlights
• Vanessa Buckley’s energy and razor-sharp timing
• Audience participation — you even get chips

Who it’s for
• Emotional eaters and comfort-food philosophers
• Melbourne Fringe-goers
• Survivors of modern dating
• Anyone holding their life together while falling apart

Chip on Her Shoulder is performed nightly, 6pm, through to 11 October. 

Reviewed by Mary Sinanidis