Frangipane Productions, in what one hopes is the last throes of lockdown 2, has fastened on a deceptively simple love story by British playwright Phil Porter. The tale of two neighbours who become virtual (in both senses) acquaintances trickles out by means of alternating monologues directly to camera. The drama was filmed on stage, and directors Maggie Moriarty and Louis Cunningham have done a thoroughly professional job, demonstrating the technical leaps and bounds made in virtual drama since lockdown 1.

The hesitant Jonah (Gabe Winsor), formerly of a Christian community and now alone in London, earnestly desires to know daddy's girl Sophie (Pip Lang), equally on her own, and the handy method of communication happens to be a baby monitor. A suggestion of peep-show and surveillance is thus introduced, though the halting relationship that follows – rather than develops – moves in the sphere of mutual dependency and misunderstanding, not of control.

The vicissitudes of modern life soon intrude on any thought of idyll, notably in the shape of a heartless personnel officer (also Gabe Winsor) announcing Sophie's sacking from her job in startlingly inverted terms: 'I'm wondering if this might be good news I'm giving you', and passing off the news as 'a nudge from the Gods'. I was reminded of George Clooney as a professional 'downsizer' in Up in the Air, seeking to persuade his victims that he's not so much the Grim Reaper as a kindly bestower of opportunity.

The black-and-white camera work by Micheal-Akolade Ayodeji was a delight: fluid but not flashy, with interesting but not a surfeit of montage, and effective chiaroscuro. I was put in mind of the work of 40s and 50s cameramen like John Alton and James Wong Howe. I thought Niky Pasolini's original music subscribed rather too much to the tinkling piano formula without which no film containing even a sliver of romance seems to be complete. Yet in the harrowing accident scene, music and camera combined to create considerable tension.

Our two players were challenged to achieve a level of varied naturalism in the medium-shots and in the baleful gaze of the many close-ups. Jonah (Gabe Winsor), in knitted jumper, with tousled hair, open face and engaging smile, gave a thoughtful performance, if occasionally a trifle mannered in speech rhythm and in verbal phrasing around the scripted pauses. He saved his best for last, coming on with strong, repressed pain at the bitter-sweet end.

As for Pip Lang as Sophie, before the unforgiving close-up camera she displayed such a wide range of gesture and expression, always unforced and never seemingly premeditated. When her voice adopted the demotic high rising terminal, it was never over-used. Persuasive as a hospital consultant, combining the generic yet individual approach of the type towards the partner of a patient, she then produced a pitch-perfect German national accent. She was also able to deepen her voice to suggest heightened emotion. This was acting of a very sophisticated order.

Sometimes a student theatre production in Oxford can be a pure delight. I always knew it, and remember running to several shows I had particularly enjoyed to see them twice or more: Posh staged at Oxford Union was one of them, but there were many more at the Burton Taylor Studio. This time I did my drama bingeing online: I watched Blink (a play by Phil Porter written in 2012 for Soho Theatre) both on Friday and Saturday, as I could not get enough of it.

Interestingly, current conditions of digital observance without an actual presence add another layer to this play that poses a Shakespearean question in the light of current obsession with visibility by others: ‘To be or not to be seen’. Nowadays it is not enough to exist only, it is all about who sees us and whom we see, and the play very effectively plays with this leitmotif throughout. Sophie ‘lacks visibility’ at her job, while her father ‘made her be seen’. Jonah is used to keeping watch at night, and does so at the end of the play when Sophie gets into an accident, while ‘seeing’ someone who looks like her father. The characters see each other through a babysitting video device, practicing voyeurism on each other with mutual consent. They also patiently and sometimes obsessively observe others they meet – the traumatologist, the German artist, people on London Eye (leitmotif again!). Blink is about the aperture that opens when we start seeing others, and the ultimate pleasure of being seen: Sophie resumes her life that is brought to a halt when she knows she is being watched by Jonah. In the end, isn’t this silent companionship of mutual observance something we all crave?

Directors Maggie Moriarty and Louis Cunningham, both possessing huge experience of Oxford's drama scene, do a remarkable job in bringing this tender, clever and emotional play alive and making a breathing, tangibly palpitating masterpiece out of it. They play with the theme of observance by alternating between various modes of narration: sometimes the characters ‘see’ the audience and tell us their stories alone while sat in different corners of the room, sometimes they act, but don’t see each other (as characters) but respond to each other’s statements as narrators, and they live their lives and see/not see each other. They also play other characters and thus see each other as two actors, but don’t ‘see’ Sophie or Jonah. Only towards the end do Sophie (Philippa Lang) and Jonah (Gabe Winsor) truly interact and start telling their story together – only after admitting to each other they have been silently observing for days on end. The directors very efficiently use two screens to mark these shifting divisions: in the beginning they encapsulate each character in their own corners, in the middle they are gone and serve as doors or entrances to the outside world, and – in the end – they are coupled again in the centre of the room to newly separate two people.

Cinematography by Michael-Akolade Ayodeji is just stunning and creates a black-and-white film out of this theatre production. It is inventive to the point of adding up to the theme of seeing anew, as it constantly creates new angles to help us see the developing story with ever-changing freshness. Ayodeji uses montage and overexposure, zooms in and out, shows us characters in portrait and ‘in landscape’ of the room, hints at the stages in their relationships by framing them differently within his picture. This production could be seen without words, another message of everyday practices of observance that Blink successfully conveys. The black-and-white decision helps to focus on the narration, on music (very poignant original composition by Niky Pasolini), on the timbre of voices (sound by Abi Watkinson), on faces and on contrasts and shadows, as the whiteness of hospital gowns, rehabilitation clothes, crisp pillows and pale faces is also telling in this outstanding rendition of Porter’s drama. By pure coincidence I myself have just gone through rehab with a broken ankle, and found this to be another proof of how our stories coincide and intertwine within theatre and out of it. Although – and this is the only grain of salt – there might have been a tad too many melodramatic deaths and injuries in the play for my liking.

Last but not least – a huge round of virtual applause to both leading actors, Philippa Lang and Gabe Winsor. If I had the power of engaging these two young people in professional drama, I would do so asap, although that might just take them away from the tenderness and natural poise, that authenticity of narrating and living through the story they so convincingly make their own. After this production any other actors playing these two characters would seem artificial to me, as Lang and Winsor succeed in fully immersing me in their worlds with abundant tiny details: troubled memories of mothers and fathers, observations of other people and details of their daily lives, their pains, their interests, their obsessions (Jonah visits the trauma doctor until the policeman stops him). They are also very proficient in sliding into the lives of other characters (there are three more – the doctor, the German artist and the personnel manager) and making it so elegant that we hardly notice the need to suspend our disbelief as the conventions of theatre require. I hope Blink could be seen again on demand, as there is no way one could live without seeing it!