What was particularly odd for me was that I went home from seeing this on Monday night and before going to bed tried to catch up with the culture section from the Sunday Times. And lo and behold I found there a review of the play I had just seen. And a review so totally at odds with what we had just enjoyed that I struggled to recognise it. How did this bloke see the same play I had seen? You can tell how much an audience likes something from the applause. Not the standing ovations that tend to come with very famous stars. But you just notice a sharper pitch to applause where an audience hads liked something more than they expected. And we got that for this play.
A flatlining romcom was the summary. NO. This was full of delightful cracking dialogue. The time flew by. The neat conceit of the play is that the first act is the first 45 minutes of a couple's relationship, and the second act appears to be the last 45 minutes, 10 years on as they split up their possessions on divorce.
The opening act is really laugh a minute banter between the odd couple, him border-line autistic obsessive, she nymphomaniac extrovert, fresh from having done the groom at a wedding. "We might have got away with it if we had made it all the way up the stairs first."
The second is rather more poignant. She has been unfaithful with him too, feeling that he gave more attention to his little collections of McDonalds toys, bugs and cigarette cards than to her. But that's what you get with an obsessive geek (albeit here an unfeasibly hunky one). But it still had great lines. As she sought to open an old trunk they had bought years ago with a newly-found key she said "You told me that this couldn't be opened". "Well no, actually I think I said you couldn't open it. Which you couldn't."
It was a great, fun night. Exactly what the theatre should be. And no, it wasn't a 100% realistic view of what a relationship is like. Instead it was a comedy. You know, funny. And clever.
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