Reviews

Farley’s Date

Farley’s lounge is a microcosm of his world: claustrophobic and in a bit of a mess.
Dumped by his girlfriend, and wallowing in this pokey pit of self pity, Farley (Matt Warman) wants to hit the road; Route 66, Easyrider style, and he’s trying to persuade his best mate Jace (Mark Homer) to go on one last splurge with him. Jace, however, is playing out his life by the rulebook. He’s got a good job, and is weeks away from marrying his girlfriend. If this premise seems hackneyed, that’s because it is, but bear with me…

This familiarity is actually the play’s strength; we are in Farley’s lounge after all. It’s nicely paced, the characters well drawn, and the acting, on the whole, convincing. We all know people like these; the boys talk around, rather than about serious matters, they mess around, and end up on just the right side of totally hopeless and vaguely endearing. Helen Barford as Stella holds her own in this boys’ world; she’s quite a feisty madam who is all the same dreaming of her big day and wearing her Nan’s pearls. But they are not mere types, there’s something fresh about the delivery that makes this portrayal feel like a snapshot rather than a cartoon of disillusioned thirty-somethings.

Special praise goes to Sarah Charles-Thomas for the set; with clever placement of a wash basket and plastic cabinet just offstage, giving the impression of a Farley’s festering bathroom just beyond our view. I was also pleasantly surprised by former Eastender Mark Homer‘s script, with it’s chirpy chatter and easy humour. However, despite Jayne Denny’s (Tina); best efforts with her less developed role, deliberately drawn as an outsider to the central three, at times her lines jarred.

But what was light and frothy during the first half imploded in a shouty tangle in the second, the delicate brush strokes all but obliterated. Blokey blokes, who started off FHMs finest, in the second half become hand-wringing caricatures, and I wasn’t totally convinced. The dynamic between the main characters would have been more than enough to sustain this play; I felt the subplot of the tragic death of a close relative to be a device I’ve seen too many times on the fringe, and there wasn’t room for it in this little lounge.

– Christina Bracewell