Raw, forthright and astutely funny, Blind Tastingunravels a year in the life of Sophie. A cynical wine-seller who is required to cold call people at random, Sophie rediscovers her love for the very thing she detests selling – as well as a certain bloke – when she goes on a cruise with her friend Kirsty and chances upon a wine connoisseur by the name of Peter.

The stage performance kicks off with a light-hearted candour that sees Sylvia Keays – the actor who plays Sophie – silently emerging from the crowd and guzzling down a few glasses of red wine with a blindfold draped across her eyes. Just as the audience start to wonder if Keays will perform the entire play blindfolded, she whips it off and proceeds to wax lyrical about a life permeated by the overarching themes of love, loss, friendship and a fear of judgement.

The performance is enlivened through the sophisticated use of background audio – used mainly when Sophie dials the numbers of strangers to sell them wine – while the spotlight that beams exclusively on Sophie from time to time creates a focal point for much of the performance.

Keays exudes confidence and comes across as witty and charming while retaining a sense of vulnerability – a counterpoint that is integral to the role of Sophie as we journey along with her throughout the highs and lows of her life.

Keays is a deeply compelling actor, seamlessly transitioning from laughter in one moment to tears in the next. As a torrent of emotion is unleashed towards the very end, Keays’ rendition of Sophie’s trials and tribulations is so rousing and heartfelt it feels as though Keays is narrating the events of her own life.

With the enjoyment of wine constituting the premise for many of Sophie’s life experiences, the play’s narration is rendered poetically through the exploration of wine’s many subtle nuances and remains accessible throughout. The audience are given the opportunity to taste two wines as Sophie traces the monotonous drudgery of her day-to-day job through to life’s sheer unpredictability and the near-spiritual enlightenment she encounters when she discovers that life is nothing if not a blind tasting.

Blind Tasting has finished its run at the Fringe Festival. More information on subtlenuance projects can be found on their website.