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Writer Stewart Permutt is no stranger to issues, or as you might cynically call them, #issues. His previous play ‘Unsuspecting Susan’ explored the impact of radical Islamism in white middle-class society. Now, in this new black comedy, he’s turned his attention to the social and racial faultlines that divide twenty-first-century London.
On an east London housing estate, young middle-class Jew Gideon (Joe Coen) has been attacked, and is discovered by gossipy fortysomething Gina (Michelle Collins). She takes him in and cleans his head wound – but as the customs of the Sabbath forbid him from using public transport after sundown, he’s stuck there. So over the course of a long night, they – well, come on. You know the deal with two-handers like this. Flirting, fighting, baring their souls, and so on.
Such rapid twists and turns are fine, when plot is propelled by character, and not vice versa. Everything here feels contrived, and it makes hollow ciphers of both Gideon and Gina, which show in over-amplified performances from Coen and Collins. It’s hardly their fault, in a play with such an identity crisis. For a self-proclaimed comedy, it’s not particularly funny. For a drama, it’s far too mawkish, especially two eleventh-hour plot twists that come unconvincingly out of nowhere.
Director Tim Stark ably oversees a straightforward production. Certain bizarro moments, like when Gina reveals the weirdest painting of the Virgin Mary you’ll ever see on stage, have a grotesque appeal. But the real casualty here is the social commentary stuff: the references to multiculturalism, class divide, mental health and alcoholism. They feel ornamental. And that’s when issues just become #issues.