Lucky Seven

Synopsis

Working-class Alan, upper-class Catherine and middle-class Tom are part of a social litmus test, reunited every seven years to expose themselves to the nation. But waiting on the sofa for director David to arrive, they reveal far more to each other than they ever will to camera. Using Granada Television’s Seven UP! documentary series as inspiration, the play focuses on three participants who are contracted to meet once every seven years to have their lives scrutinised by the nation and each other.

Our Review:

5 November 2008

An odd but sharply written comedy that doesn’t quite deliver a knock-out punch, Alexis Zegerman’s Lucky Seven is inspired by the Granada Television documentary series that catches up with a random bunch of people once every seven years. Michael Apted’s ongoing programme is charting the lives of fourteen volunteer subjects, whereas Zegerman, for purposes of dramatic concentration as much as budget economies, focuses on the stories of just three social guinea pigs.

Although the television series insists there is no coercion involved, Zegerman’s characters – posh, spoilt and punkish Catherine (Susannah Harker), Jewish working class Alan (David Kennedy) and academically inclined middle-class Tom (Jonny Weir) – seem trapped in their destinies, waiting for the unseen director who is some kind of blameworthy villain.

We start at the age of forty-nine and jump back and forth to the other key stages of forty-two and twenty-one – the ma...

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