(seen at the afternoon performance on 12th March 2025)
You can rely on Chris Bush to follow a different path when tackling a topic much of the right-wing media sensationalise to the detriment of the actual people about whom they are writing.
Jo (Jade Anouka) and Harry (Fizz Sinclair) are happily married. Harry decides to transition to female; Jo realises that her Lesbian side is the one she most wishes to express. After five years together they split up, dividing the CD collection and hideous cookware wedding gifts between them.
Jo goes on to meet Gabby (Amanda Wilkin) and develop in ways she does not expect. Harry is caught in the expected, endless cycle of having to explain herself, waiting lists of five years or more just to be and endless bureaucracy.
Bush’s concept is to split the play into real-life, introducing metaphor into the second half. A chorus of four women (Danielle Fiamanya, Laura Hanna, Beth Hinton-Lever and Serena Manteghi) sing elegantly and comment with honesty as well as providing some helpful links on proceedings.
The second half metaphors are powerful, Sinclair’s simple plea for understanding of a species (the play explains it) moves and touches in a way overt delivery could not.
Anouka’s feelings as a reluctant mother are almost as effective. From solo hiker trying to rebuild after a failed relationship to this unexpected situation is a delightfully delivered performance, aided by Wilkin’s oscillating enthusiasm and sadness.
Utilising much of the set from last autumn’s double bill, Fly Davis provides an amusingly active and versatile space. Milla Clarke and Anna Watson use costume and lighting to add the colours, so that monochrome fades as the arguments themselves gain vibrancy visual as well as textural.
Ann Yee encourages the actors to handle the text naturally even when spinning out into the unusual. There are periods, particularly in the first half, where we are waiting too long for the action to move forward more quickly again, but the far more difficult second half is handled impeccably.
A production lying somewhere between slightly genius and in need of some serious editing, it is a very clever way of making a vital point without preaching or sensationalising.
Perhaps a feeling of many ideas which could have been sifted down to three or four before reaching the stage, there are enough of high value to justify our time and alter our perspectives for the far better.
3 stars.
Photo credit: Marc Brenner. Used by kind permission of the Almeida Theatre.