Split Ends at Contact

On paper, Split Ends sounds brilliantly absurd – a solo show about a woman who falls in love with a vacuum. But beneath the strange humour sits something far darker. Following five-star runs at Brighton Fringe, Camden and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the critically acclaimed production arrives at Contact this month.

Created and performed by RADA graduate Claudia Shnier, Split Ends blends physical theatre, puppetry and multimedia into a raw exploration of coercive control, toxic relationships and emotional obsession. Comparisons have been drawn to groundbreaking playwright Sarah Kane – known for confronting love, violence and mental health with brutal honesty – and Split Ends explores coercive control, obsession and emotional dependency with a similarly raw honesty.

At the centre is Claudia, a woman consumed by split ends, stray hairs and the exhausting rituals of bodily maintenance, who finds herself trapped in an increasingly toxic relationship with a vacuum. Yes, an actual vacuum. As the relationship spirals, hair becomes obsession, battleground and coping mechanism all at once – plucking, shaving, cutting, cleaning and vacuuming her way through cycles of control, manipulation and emotional chaos.

On stage, Split Ends combines physical theatre, puppetry and multimedia with a scrappy, DIY energy that feels perfectly suited to Contact’s intimate performance space. Expect surreal humour, raw emotion and inventive visuals. EdFringe Review described it as “the most powerful piece of performance art I’ve had the privilege of experiencing”.

What makes the show particularly striking is the tension between comedy and discomfort. One minute audiences are laughing at the sheer weirdness of a woman arguing with a vacuum; the next, the production cuts into something painfully recognisable about coercive relationships and the slow erosion of self-worth. The result feels emotionally raw, inventive and deeply personal – this is theatre unafraid to be strange, vulnerable and a little chaotic.

At a time when conversations around coercive control and emotional abuse continue to grow, Split Ends tackles difficult subject matter from an unusual angle – proving that experimental theatre can hit with real emotional force.