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A Girl in School Uniform (Walks Into a Bar)
It's the future. But only slightly. There are blackouts. No one knows what's causing them, but that doesn't stop people going missing in them.
Now Steph and Bell, a schoolgirl and barmaid, have to search for their missing friend, until the outside world starts infecting the theatre that stands around them.
Schoolgirl Steph walks into the seedy, empty bar where Bell works. Bell is dressed with everything short and low, and there are no longer any regulars at her bar. Whatever has happened to create this dystopian world remains a mystery, but we learn that there are frequent blackouts, people regularly go missing and women are being killed.
Steph is looking for her friend Charlotte, a girl who also at some point walked into Bell's bar but then went missing. The relationship between Bell and Charlotte is unclear, as her conversations with Steph shift between truth, lies and fantasy. In this tense atmosphere, where there is a sense of growing fear, the play "forces the audience to turn detective not just to track down the elusive Charlotte but also to find meaning itself" ( The Guardian ).
A Girl in a School Uniform (Walks into a Bar) is the third play by award-winning playwright Lulu Raczka and was produced at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2017 and the New Diorama Theatre in 2018.
Now Steph and Bell, a schoolgirl and barmaid, have to search for their missing friend, until the outside world starts infecting the theatre that stands around them.
Schoolgirl Steph walks into the seedy, empty bar where Bell works. Bell is dressed with everything short and low, and there are no longer any regulars at her bar. Whatever has happened to create this dystopian world remains a mystery, but we learn that there are frequent blackouts, people regularly go missing and women are being killed.
Steph is looking for her friend Charlotte, a girl who also at some point walked into Bell's bar but then went missing. The relationship between Bell and Charlotte is unclear, as her conversations with Steph shift between truth, lies and fantasy. In this tense atmosphere, where there is a sense of growing fear, the play "forces the audience to turn detective not just to track down the elusive Charlotte but also to find meaning itself" ( The Guardian ).
A Girl in a School Uniform (Walks into a Bar) is the third play by award-winning playwright Lulu Raczka and was produced at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2017 and the New Diorama Theatre in 2018.
- GenresPlays
96 pages, Paperback
Published January 30, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 31, 2025
A Girl in School Uniform (Walks Into a Bar) is a gripping postdramatic feminist thriller set in a dystopian city plagued by blackouts and disappearances. It explores the ambient, unseen threat of male violence and society’s failure to protect women, using a fragmented structure that mirrors trauma and disorientation.
Steph and Bell, a schoolgirl and a barmaid, are fluid figures whose shifting roles highlight the performative nature of female identity. Trapped in a bar, a space of isolation rather than refuge, they invent stories to process fear and reclaim agency. Their storytelling becomes a form of resistance and solidarity.
Raczka rejects traditional narrative arcs, forcing the audience to search for meaning amid repetition and uncertainty. The blackouts function as a haunting metaphor for societal blindness, implicating the audience in the pervasive dread. The result is a powerful, unsettling reflection on violence, identity, and the necessity of shared narrative.
Steph and Bell, a schoolgirl and a barmaid, are fluid figures whose shifting roles highlight the performative nature of female identity. Trapped in a bar, a space of isolation rather than refuge, they invent stories to process fear and reclaim agency. Their storytelling becomes a form of resistance and solidarity.
Raczka rejects traditional narrative arcs, forcing the audience to search for meaning amid repetition and uncertainty. The blackouts function as a haunting metaphor for societal blindness, implicating the audience in the pervasive dread. The result is a powerful, unsettling reflection on violence, identity, and the necessity of shared narrative.
November 30, 2025
This was haunting. Haunting and truthful. It made me feel so much feminine rage and agony; I think I choked on my breath a few times.
August 18, 2024
3.5 The premise was really interesting and I feel like the dialogue flowed really naturally. I wanted to know the answers to all the questions the play was posing! But the ending was so jarring and abrupt. I was flipping to the last few blank pages thinking “that’s it?” So like, where the heck is Tracy? How much does Bell know? Why was Bell so reluctant to tell anything to Steph in the first place? I think it might read better on a stage versus just reading the play cold. But I wanted there to be a a resolve that just wasn’t there. With all that being said, I had so much fun reading it. I just wanted more!
October 9, 2024
Annoying!
I will admit in contemporary fiction it is justified, and often much braver, to leave out explanations and leave story threads unresolved for the sake of whatever a piece is trying to achieve. I say "braver" because it's exactly what you'd do if you were a bad writer or couldn't work out what you were trying to do. Therefore if you leave things unresolved, you risk this accusation.
Unfortunately, bad writers will pretend they were doing bad writing for the good writing reason. Or they might mistakenly believe they did good writing when, in fact, they didn't.
I've mentioned this in other reviews where new novelists in interviews will be like, "I was just trying to do something different with the novel."
Sometimes I wish the interviewer would ask them, "Right, so you can do what other novelists do, you just--chose not to? That's what you're telling me?"
Because, like, no they can't! Hahaha. But that would be too mean.
Having said all that, I don't mind imperfection at all. It's inevitable. What's not inevitable is inauthenticity. But I suppose if you were promoting a book you wrote, especially if you were new at that, you'd be loath to say, "What can I say, mate? Best I could do right now."
When it comes to this one, I like the mysterious mood of it for the most part, but the dialogue drags it out too far with not enough progression (plot/character/worldbuilding) for my liking. Which would be the difference between this and Beckett or Pinter--and especially Sarah Kane, for example who, while maintaining a mysterious mood will simultaneously give you something else to chew on.
This one just goes in circles and ends nowhere.
I will admit in contemporary fiction it is justified, and often much braver, to leave out explanations and leave story threads unresolved for the sake of whatever a piece is trying to achieve. I say "braver" because it's exactly what you'd do if you were a bad writer or couldn't work out what you were trying to do. Therefore if you leave things unresolved, you risk this accusation.
Unfortunately, bad writers will pretend they were doing bad writing for the good writing reason. Or they might mistakenly believe they did good writing when, in fact, they didn't.
I've mentioned this in other reviews where new novelists in interviews will be like, "I was just trying to do something different with the novel."
Sometimes I wish the interviewer would ask them, "Right, so you can do what other novelists do, you just--chose not to? That's what you're telling me?"
Because, like, no they can't! Hahaha. But that would be too mean.
Having said all that, I don't mind imperfection at all. It's inevitable. What's not inevitable is inauthenticity. But I suppose if you were promoting a book you wrote, especially if you were new at that, you'd be loath to say, "What can I say, mate? Best I could do right now."
When it comes to this one, I like the mysterious mood of it for the most part, but the dialogue drags it out too far with not enough progression (plot/character/worldbuilding) for my liking. Which would be the difference between this and Beckett or Pinter--and especially Sarah Kane, for example who, while maintaining a mysterious mood will simultaneously give you something else to chew on.
This one just goes in circles and ends nowhere.
January 2, 2022
This play is set in the near future, where there are blackouts that lead to both accidents (car crashes, generators exploding, etc.) and a rash of murders, especially of women and girls. It really reminds me of the pervasive problem of missing and murdered Indigenous women in parts of the US and Canada. The problem is known, but the authorities seem to have little desire or ability to do anything, and so a climate of fear and resentment develops.
But what I find really interesting about this play is the epistemological uncertainty that drives the whole thing. There are two characters: Steph, a schoolgirl who is searching for her friend Charlie, and Bell, a bartender who is reluctant to help. Over the course of the play, they repeatedly lie to each other, omit info, and delve into fantasy (either as a way to escape their fears when caught in a blackout or to try and learn more about what the other knows or is willing to do to find Charlie). Part way through, we learn that Charlie has been murdered, and so Steph changes her quest to try and find Tracy, Charlie's birth mother, which is what Charlie had been doing when she was murdered. Bell is still reluctant to help, but she sets up an elaborate fantasy that Steph gets drawn into about trying to find Tracy by going through these various underworld figures. There are some final twists that build the epistemological uncertainty, but I won't spoil them in this review (though I will probably discuss them in my video review).
https://youtu.be/n7cTHAgIhNM
But what I find really interesting about this play is the epistemological uncertainty that drives the whole thing. There are two characters: Steph, a schoolgirl who is searching for her friend Charlie, and Bell, a bartender who is reluctant to help. Over the course of the play, they repeatedly lie to each other, omit info, and delve into fantasy (either as a way to escape their fears when caught in a blackout or to try and learn more about what the other knows or is willing to do to find Charlie). Part way through, we learn that Charlie has been murdered, and so Steph changes her quest to try and find Tracy, Charlie's birth mother, which is what Charlie had been doing when she was murdered. Bell is still reluctant to help, but she sets up an elaborate fantasy that Steph gets drawn into about trying to find Tracy by going through these various underworld figures. There are some final twists that build the epistemological uncertainty, but I won't spoil them in this review (though I will probably discuss them in my video review).
https://youtu.be/n7cTHAgIhNM
March 31, 2022
3.5 A student chose this play I'd never heard of before for the final project for play analysis. Interesting.
October 18, 2022
Extremely boring and very annoying. I do not recommend this play to anyone.
June 17, 2023
i really liked it until the end bc i got super confused but hey that’s ok i guess
November 3, 2023
i love complex female characters!!!!
August 23, 2024
im not intellectual enough to get it. but it’s fun and it’s dramatic and its so pleasant
May 31, 2025
not sure i rlly understood this one. there were parts i really liked, but it does seem a bit confused with itself
January 2, 2026
STEPH: Right. — But can you just look at a picture of her?
BELL: If you clean some glasses?
STEPH: Okay...
BELL: I was joking...?
BELL: If you clean some glasses?
STEPH: Okay...
BELL: I was joking...?
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews