Theatre

Though British in tone and setting, Allan Swift’s drama of mid-life marital crises could be described as a cross between ‘Sex and the City’ and Woody Allen’s ‘Husbands and Wives’. The plot charts the unravelling of the gender politics of the 1990s. At its heart is a trio of women testing the limits of hard-won post-feminist equality as they contemplate motherhood. Penny (Hilary Tones) is about to have her second child with husband Tom (Steve Watts), a perfect embodiment of the New Man ideal. Funny, handsome and a fine dad, he worships his wife, and women generally – which is where the problems begin. Meantime Fiona (Susan Bracken) announces she’s pregnant to computer-nerd husband Michael (Stephen Lockwood), only to be told that he’s leaving her. Then there’s businesswoman Ros (Louise Yates). Approaching the big four-o and still single, she’s keen to help her friends out. If only she weren’t having an affair with one of their husbands, she’d be great.

The script is far from perfect. Swift’s characters don’t know when to stop talking: the key battle-of-the-sexes topoi are all shoehorned in whether they’re germane to the action or not. There are half a dozen too many confrontations and plot twists – baroque exuberance wins out over classical restraint every time. Nonetheless, there’s something compelling about the messy desperation of it all, nicely captured by the uniformly dense and meaty performances. The cast plays late-thirtysomethings but could mostly pass for older – that’s intended as a compliment rather than an insult. It’s a pleasure to see such a grown-up bit of new work on the fringe.