Whilst I love the tried and tested as much as the next person, a new play in a new venue always has a certain allure, and Earworm – an anti-rom-com, written and directed by Gur Arie Piepskovitz, that has just opened for a brief run downstairs at Dalston’s ‘The Divine’ ticks both boxes.
Although it’s still very much a work in progress, there’s a lot to like about this four-hander detailing modern queer relationships.
It’s the story of Guy (Avihud Tidhar), a wannabe performer who we first meet as he pitches his act, trying to get funders interested. He needs to be heard in spite of his apparent inability to express himself. He gets turned down. The money goes instead to ‘Randy the Magician’.
He heads home to his to partner John (Brodie Bass), an older man, studying for his PhD, and it’s clear that there are tensions in the relationship, Guy being rather more in need of sex and physical intimacy than his partner.
John has invited his fellow researcher on the PhD paper, Tyler (Andro), to come to dinner though it’s apparent that Guy isn’t the most organised person as far as cooking is concerned, and the evening turns out to be a fairly last minute affair where John has to go out and get supplies to rescue the evening.
When Tyler arrives, he has his new nineteen year old boyfriend Zayn (Nadjei Fofie-Dam) in tow, and as the evening progresses they run out of wine, so John and Zayn head to the shop for more, leaving Guy and Tyler alone. Guy puts on his favourite song, and soon he and Tyler are lips locked as John and Zayn return to find them.
After the meal Guy and John argue, with Guy throwing John out of the flat. Guy grieves for his lost love, searching for the perfect break-up ‘Earworm’ song of the title to encapsulate how he’s feeling. John eventually returns.
There are positives to be had aplenty. The cast are excellent, and Andro and Nadjei Fofie-Dam play multiple roles with ease. Some of the dialogue, especially in the first scene where all four characters are together in the flat, fairly zings along with some great one-liners, though there are a few areas that Gur Arie Piepskovitz (GAP) might like to have a look at.
The very opening of the show doesn’t really work. It needs either to be fantastically funny, or so chronically awful that it’s clearly meant to be funny, in order to signal to the audience that they have permission to laugh. Currently it falls between the two, meaning that the first fifteen minutes fell a bit flat.
I think the writing would also benefit from ramping up the stakes, with more conflict. Especially if the pay-offs are as funny as GAP manages elsewhere. This could also be a way of making the characters more likeable.
From a practical point of view, I found myself wondering how an apparently unsuccessful performer (Guy), was the one who owned the flat, rather than his partner John (easily solved by a line somewhere).
And one final note about Guy’s search. Flicking through hundreds of playlists on Spotify makes him come across as a shallow narcissist. I wonder if we’d like him more if he was into Vinyl (records) and was searching his collection for that perfect song to encapsulate how he feels?
All in all though a play which shows great promise. Though if it comes back to this long slim venue, I’d suggest considering a traverse staging which would avoid the need for the cast to enter and exit through the audience.
Venue: The Divine
Writer & Director: Gur Arie Piepskovitz
Cast: Avihud Tidhar, Brodie Bass, Andro, Nadjei Fofie-Dam
Dates: 20th to 23rd October 2024
Running time: 85 Minutes, no interval
Date Seen: Sunday 20th October 2024