As the lights go up we find ourselves looking at a modern apartment that is stylish, but blandly unfinished and lacking in personal touches – affluence but no ambience. Two men enter – it is clearly late at night – very late at night – and it quickly emerges that we are witnessing the aftermath of a visit to A&E, with Jude bearing the signs of a fall and Kyle there as his emergency contact.
The play opens out into a free-ranging conversation between two former partners who have not seen one another for many years. Gradually we glean the information needed to put the pieces of the past together as the mood shifts between reconnection, rekindled and remembered affection, and the relitigating of old hurt and quarrels. There is a lot of comedy and tart dialogue and emerging poignancy as the relationship exposed is one where the two of them appeared to be most fulfilled but also strung out when exploring extremes of alcohol and drugs.
This is very much Kevin Elyot territory and the writing has many of the same qualities – hidden secrets and pools of hurt and grief memorably evoked and re-enacted in a brittle urban environment. There is an admirable depth of characterisation and control of shifts of mood and a similar mature encapsulation of acres of experience in scenes of aching simplicity – one character tells an imagined bedtime story to another that sums up so much in the final scene of the evening. In a way true to life both everything is discussed, and nothing is resolved.
The quality of the acting is very fine and director Matthew Iliffe ensure that the set is fully populated and explored so that this is never a static conversation unless there is a good reason for it. John McCrea as Jude captures the mercurial charm and self-sabotage of his role with precision – while appearing to be the more damaged and vulnerable of the two, he succeeds in determining the course of the evening essentially through expert emotional manipulation. Perry Williams as Kyle is the more subdued and reticent role, yet he sustains a credible and moving line of character development through the evening.
One area which did not convince was the external agency of Kyle’s new partner, represented by a significant telephone call. For all of Williams’ skill in putting this across, it seemed more like an arbitrary intervention by the writer rather than a natural evolution from within the internal dynamic of the play. It was the one false note of an otherwise seamless psychological study.
Overall this is an impressive evening, and there seems little doubt we shall hear more of this writer and see fresh outings of this play. All credit also to everyone responsible for enabling the cooking of a very plausible dish of spaghetti carbonara which plays an important role in the course of the evening and which I very nearly got to sample in the front row!
Writer: Louis Emmitt-Stern
Director: Matthew Iliffe
Cast: John McCrea, Perry Williams
Until 11 April 2026
80 mins
Photo Credit: Ali Wright