It is not often, these days, that you have the author of a play also taking on one of the leading roles, but such is the case with this new play by Nancy Farino. At the core of it lies a father-daughter relationship, where she plays the daughter in a well-rounded and convincing performance. However, her sheer closeness to the material does not always work to the best advantage of the whole. While each scene can be justified locally, in the overall arc of the play there is some redundancy and repetition of themes that a greater distance might have dispelled.
We have here essentially two narratives interwoven and intersecting, but not always comfortably. We meet Winston, a garrulous, disorganised, self-appointed life-coach as he encounters his daughter Joy after a long gap. She is on her uppers, tired of coping with unresolved difficulties at work and in her relationships. Despite misgivings, she decides to accept his madcap offer to travel to Ireland in search of their Irish roots, and to do so in a converted but barely road-worthy school bus that he has shambolically restored. Predictably it does not go well.
Alongside this first set of themes sits what turns out to be a negligence case. Under interrogation from lawyer, Claire, Winston finally reveals that the family of a former client is suing him on account of his role in a suicide. Among the back and forth are a good number of important issues, including the lack of controlled licensing for therapy and the legal minefield involved for all parties when things go badly wrong. However, there is not the space here to do the justice to these rich ingredients and I could not escape the conclusion by the end that there were really two plays here fighting each other for space here, that really ought to be separated out by a dramaturg.
That said, the players and the creative team do the production proud. The production is set in traverse with only a couple of chairs and a few props as scenery. It is a real challenge to simulate a bus drive cross-country with many incidents and accidents along the way; but designer Debbie Dru does wonders in this regard, not least in providing a very credible bridge bash that loses the bus its roof. (I will say no more to avoid spoilers. There is also a subtle and shifting lighting scheme from Christopher Nairne and a discreetly present sound design that contributes powerfully to the needed illusionism for a road movie that lacks both road and vehicle.
The three cast members are excellent in their roles and play off each other with full credibility. Jason Thorpe has a huge role, not least because Winston never seems to listen and is always talking. But it is a multi-layered performance, finding comedy, both verbal and visual, and, in the final scenes, a degree of pathos too, despite him being the author of most of his misfortunes. As Joy, Farino, grows from a subdued and defeated figure into a fresh degree of self-confidence and self-knowledge by the end of the action. It is an impressively nuanced performance, even if there are a few too many introspective monologues that becalm the flow of the play. Shona Babayemi gives a refined and subtly graded performance as the lawyer, running the full gamut from exasperation to empathy to disillusion. She hints at an interesting back-story too, but, as elsewhere, there is no space really to develop this effectively.
Dramatically this is a flawed production, that needs to lose some running time; but the interplay of the actors is consistently engaging and entertaining, and the capacity audience on press night appreciated it highly.
Writer: Nancy Farino
Director: Tessa Walker
Cast: Shona Babayemi, Nancy Farino, Jason Thorpe
Until 29 November 2025
1 hr 40 mins, no interval
Photo Credit: Pamela Raith