Giraffe *****

“Last night wasn’t my finest hour”, Eliana acknowledges, reflecting upon her latest faux pas.

She is a 30-year-old, self-declared sociopath, living in her father and stepmother’s attic room. She had smuggled a recording device into her neighbour’s home, but when listening in, she realises that Tabatha has rumbled her.

A restraining order duly follows and Eliana is forced to move out until a court hearing determines whether it should be made permanent. The court case represents an existential crisis. Were the order to be confirmed, it would be impossible for Eliana to remain in her home. This is potentially emotionally distressing, as she has a strong connection with an olive tree in the garden.

She temporarily moves in with Susie, a single mother struggling with the demands of her daughter, Ava. Rather unexpectedly, Eliana forms a connection with the child, finding a way of communicating that had eluded her despairing mother.

Time is against Eliana though: she has two weeks to persuade three people to attest to her fitness for society, if she is to have any chance at all of being able to move back home.

Eliana had always been different. As a five-year-old, she didn’t know how to smile. When seven, she attacked another child dressed as Pingu, because she could not get a read on its facial expression. As a 10-year-old, she performed a stand-up routine at a funeral.

In a moment from her formative years, she is crushingly described by her aunt as a ‘sociopath who is dead behind the eyes’. Eliana carries the weight of those words with her into adulthood.

As she has grown older, she has learned to cosplay “normal” as best she can, constructing masks in a forlorn attempt to blend in. So when she attends a drama-therapy group, it represents a dangerous step into unfamiliar territory. Some techniques are designed to help actors “find their truth”; for Eliana, that means risking the removal of the masks she has spent a lifetime perfecting.

At the heart of Giraffe is a moving exploration of autism: its diagnosis, its misdiagnosis, and the defence mechanisms developed to navigate a world that can often feel hostile and incomprehensible. It is also very funny.

Abigail Weinstock is a gifted performer. She recounts this most unlikely, but semi-autobiographical, tale, beautifully. Adeptly directed by Emma Jude Harris, Weinstock delivers a memorable performance, that is bright, engaging, ironic and self-deprecating.

With some further plot development, Giraffe could very easily make the transition to a television streaming series. Its sharply observed comedy-drama has the characters, the humour and the emotional depth to sustain a longer-form story.

Grab a ticket if you possibly can.

Pleasance Courtyard, until 31^st August.