Afterglow (24:7 Festival, Manchester)

Kicking off the first evening session of the 10th anniversary season of 24:7 – Manchester‘s annual new writing fest – Julie Burrow‘s two-hander is an acutely-observed and deeply felt examination of the twists and unexpected/unpredictable turns of a love affair.

Him (John Weaver), meets Her (Julie Burrow) in a wittily-conceived, can’t-hear-you exchange in a disco, and goes on from there to sounding out each other’s likes and dislikes, before they fall in love.

But despite everything they have in common, despite that fact that in the end – spoiler alert – they are still in love, something they can’t define happens to their relationship and they drift apart.

Told in the form of two monologues, with each character describing the action as it takes place, the form of the piece is unexpected but very successful and both actors have considerable rapport.

Director Megan Marie Griffith ensures the momentum of the piece is pretty much perfect, all acted out on a set of a central double bed that in turn becomes not just the love nest but also the seaside and countryside.

My other half didn’t understand why two people still in love would do what this couple finally do but that, I understood to be the case, is really the point of the piece, neither do the couple themselves and that’s actually what makes the script unsettling and intriguing.