Farley’s Date

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.