Two plays from The Stage's 2010 Best Solo Performer award winner, Caroline Horton; Mess is a story of obsession and addiction, while You're Not Like Other Girls, Chrissy is a fond, comical and ultimately poignant portrait of one woman's experience of love and war.

Mess: Josephine is putting on a play - Boris and Sistahl help. It's about anorexia; but don't let that put you off - they are used to the big issues - and today they will tackle a particularly thin elephant in the room. Obsessed with obsession, addiction, and not wanting to get out of bed, Mess is a play with songs from The Stage's 2010 Best Solo Performer Award winner Caroline Horton. You're Not Like the Other Girls, Chrissy: January 1945. Paris has been liberated. Christiane, an eccentric and acutely myopic Parisian waits at Gare Du Nord for a ticket to England to be reunited with her fiancé. Whilst she waits, this gloriously irrepressible mademoiselle recounts the story of her love affair with Cyril, a tongue-tied English teacher from Staffordshire. You're Not Like Other Girl's Chrissy is a fond, comical and ultimately poignant portrait of one woman's experience of love and war. This programme text coincides with China Plate Theatre's production of Mess, which is at the Traverse in Edinburgh for August 2012 and then tours the UK until the end of September. You're Not Like Other Girls, Chrissy will play at the Bristol Old Vic for a week with another week on tour to come after.

"Gathers in both charm and emotional engagement until even a hardened hack may be on the brink of tears. Winsome in all the best ways, this Horton may not be hearing a "Who?" for very long" - Financial Times

"A wryly self-deprecating piece" - Herald

"Exquisite in its sensitivity" - Scotsman

"A touching insight into the cruel grip of an eating disorder and a sense of the near impossibility of curing it in anything but the most patient and painstaking way." - Scotland on Sunday

"[Mess] comes perilously close to genius and announces Horton as a major, major talent." - Time Out

"Simple and heartfelt … feels like a real labour of love (on You're Not Like The Other Girls Chrissy)" - Guardian

"One of the oddest, funniest, saddest pieces of theatre I’ve seen in some time ... Mess could be worthy and unwatchable but it’s not. Rather it is informative and witty and constantly prods away at the strangeness of its subject matter ... packed with insights." - Telegraph