On stage for the entire 90 minutes, Loxie could easily be tiresome, but it’s a thoroughly endearing performance from Milne, a recent Griffith University graduate making her professional debut. The character is cut from the same cloth as lovable dorks such as Diane Keaton’s Annie Hall and Greta Gerwig’s Frances Ha.

Milne’s three castmates slip between myriad characters. Christopher Paton amuses as Loxie’s shallow best friend, Darcy, whose idea of fun is to judge people on their fashion choices.

As played by Tenielle Plunkett, cafe manager Steph is a hard-arse whose iron grip on the key to the staff toilets encapsulates her attitude to life.

Billy Fogarty’s Charlie is all friendly professionalism until a scene where the smitten Loxie confesses her feelings and Charlie has to deliver some hard truths. It’s a moment of pure cringe – the good kind.

Where the play loses steam is in a series of event nights (karaoke, slam poetry and stand-up comedy) the cafe stages in a bid to get on TikTok. These time-fillers reach for broad comedy but end up as cringe – the not-so good kind.

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But with judicious cutting this would be the perfect show to tour to high schools, because it has the guts to level with kids about what it feels like to have nothing shielding you from adulthood. And it does it without being crass or negative.

It’s also in tune with this generation’s suspicion of gender labels. None of the characters save Loxie is given a specific sex, and the performers lean into the androgyny.

Border’s script, which doesn’t break the fourth wall and features ironic chapter headings, would make a good TV pilot, although director Ian Lawson makes the on-stage transitions seamless with polished character work and Peter Keavy’s fidget cube-like set.