This is a delightful play written by Ben McGuinness and Lauren Barrie, which also stars the two along with Verity Leigh Woods. Charlie (played by Ben) is an architect who is looking for someone to share his flat with. The flirty Becca does her best to influence his decision to accept her application and the two get on like a house on fire. Becca has a sister, Emily, who is away on her travels but she returns and also takes a shine to the likeable Ben. And so begins an interesting situation where three into two doesn’t really go!
Now at this point it sounds like your typical love triangle is about to play out over the 90 minutes, but of course this play doesn’t follow the normal path at all – and that is so refreshing. Twists and turns keep the audience invested for the duration and it leads to an unexpected ending which brings everything together in a satisfying way. What I liked about this play is that you find yourself supporting each of the three characters at different times throughout, and it will eat away at you until the end. You can then choose where your sympathies lie. It is so well written and performed and I was hovering on giving this 5 stars, and actually feel a little mean that I am awarding it 4, which is still a great score. We don’t do halves or it would be a comfortable 4 and a half!
Where it drops points is not actually down to the writing or the acting! With the actors not miked up, it is very difficult to hear what the actors were saying at points, and I was in row 3. It is quite a large hall and if I was at the back I would have struggled to hear the razor sharp dialogue, which would have been a pity. I appreciate there are technical restraints at venues but for this hall, where the air-conditioning was very loud, it threatened to spoil the experience. Set in a different smaller venue this issue would not have been an issue. As I say it’s a constructive logistic comment and no reflection at all on the cast, but to get the most out of this wonderful play you need to be sat as close to the stage as possible to get the full benefit from it.
But to conclude this is one of the “must see” plays on the Fringe and I thought it was delightful. The cast are excellent and lovely people on and off stage. I have no doubt they will go on to fulfil brilliant careers and I for one will be following their progress in the future.
