One Act Play is, in fact, a one-act play; forty-five minutes with no interval. Swindon playwright Matt Fox won a New Writing award for it last year, and on the evidence of this super interpretation it's easy to see why.
Even before the action starts a middle-aged couple are in bed together. He looks like Mr Dull: string vest, striped pyjamas, reading the Yorkshire Post. She's in an unsexy nightie, filing her nails. They look as if they've been part of each other's lives for ever. Could be a mundane evening.
But it isn't. The play turns out to be a surrealistic feast – with a difference. One of the many things it takes a poke at is surreal theatre itself. It turns over, and makes one question, the very concept of theatre and its associated conventions. Be warned – anyone who's part of, or on the fringes of, a stagey in-crowd might feel his/her pretentions being pricked.
And it's funny. The characters are dismissive of the audience for sure. But they give their creator – they have no idea who he is; they don't know who they themselves are – a positive caning: for them he's an "arrogant twat". In the process they raise a lot of laughs.
Questions are raised. Not just about theatre, but about life itself: who are we and why are we here? None of them are answered. It's experimental theatre which is, at the same time, a critique of experimental theatre.
As the nameless couple, Lorna McCullough and Ian Bennett deliver admirably controlled, subtle and intelligent performances. And they work on a simple but effective set dominated by a painting of a whippet to reinforce the Yorkshire theme running through the play.
This upstairs studio production, directed by Amber Forrest, is a fine start to the Lace Market year.
