February 25, 2009
Never Have I Ever, in case you don’t know, is a party game in which one person makes a statement, for example, ‘Never have I ever read the seventh Harry Potter book’ (to take an example from last night’s play). If any of the other players have done this, they then have to down their glass of wine. If nobody has done it, the proposer must drink their own glass. Naturally this has huge potential for exposing (or being forced to conceal) things in your life you’d much rather not share with a room full of strangers, or even your close friends. Thus the starting point for Helen McCabe’s pleasing comedy.
It’s not a startlingly original recipe, and deliberately so, as it makes frequent reference to the great culinary traditions that preceded it. Take six characters, one of whom has a secret. Fill ‘em full of wine, stir vigorously, and ingeniously cause the secret to be exposed by means of said party game. Place in the oven and let chemistry take its course. But, rather surprisingly, you may have thought you were watching a zabaglione, but what comes out is something much less frothy and much more meaty. It’s not a farce or even a witty Wildesque drawing room comedy; McCabe is not afraid of big themes – love, identity, integrity – and allows her play to become unashamedly romantic.
The six characters are bossy Natalie, newly engaged to the peaceable David; Natalie’s brother James, who is gay but whom she still insists on trying to fix up with her friends; Jenny, a friend from Natalie’s office; Lydia, an old school friend of Natalie, and her boyfriend Martin – the one with the secret. I must say at once that the actors – some of whom have been rehearsing this for a mere week – were superb, so natural that they appear to be just playing themselves. Special mention for Rafaella Marcus as the frightful materialistic bully Natalie; Andrew Bottomley as her unfortunate fiancé who has put his humanitarian ambitions on hold to fund Natalie’s desired lifestyle; Alice Fletcher as Lydia, whose life unravels in the course of the evening; Jonathan Sims as the tortured James, Jacob Follini-Press as the repressed Martin, Jenny Allport as the bewildered Jenny – oh, that’s all of them.
The writing is sound and funny and truthful, flowing perfectly from revelation to climax; you empathize with the characters, and imagine what will become of them after the play has finished. Of course you do have to use your imagination a lot in terms of production values, conjuring a swanky London flat from one battered old table and six plastic chairs – but this is good. Well worth a look.
It’s not a startlingly original recipe, and deliberately so, as it makes frequent reference to the great culinary traditions that preceded it. Take six characters, one of whom has a secret. Fill ‘em full of wine, stir vigorously, and ingeniously cause the secret to be exposed by means of said party game. Place in the oven and let chemistry take its course. But, rather surprisingly, you may have thought you were watching a zabaglione, but what comes out is something much less frothy and much more meaty. It’s not a farce or even a witty Wildesque drawing room comedy; McCabe is not afraid of big themes – love, identity, integrity – and allows her play to become unashamedly romantic.
The six characters are bossy Natalie, newly engaged to the peaceable David; Natalie’s brother James, who is gay but whom she still insists on trying to fix up with her friends; Jenny, a friend from Natalie’s office; Lydia, an old school friend of Natalie, and her boyfriend Martin – the one with the secret. I must say at once that the actors – some of whom have been rehearsing this for a mere week – were superb, so natural that they appear to be just playing themselves. Special mention for Rafaella Marcus as the frightful materialistic bully Natalie; Andrew Bottomley as her unfortunate fiancé who has put his humanitarian ambitions on hold to fund Natalie’s desired lifestyle; Alice Fletcher as Lydia, whose life unravels in the course of the evening; Jonathan Sims as the tortured James, Jacob Follini-Press as the repressed Martin, Jenny Allport as the bewildered Jenny – oh, that’s all of them.
The writing is sound and funny and truthful, flowing perfectly from revelation to climax; you empathize with the characters, and imagine what will become of them after the play has finished. Of course you do have to use your imagination a lot in terms of production values, conjuring a swanky London flat from one battered old table and six plastic chairs – but this is good. Well worth a look.