Traverse Theatre,
Edinburgh
Four stars
Life and death are
everything for Jonah and Sophie, the shyly dysfunctional couple at
the heart of Blink, Phil Porter's self-consciously kooky but quietly
profound play, which was originally seen at the Traverse during the
theatre's 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe season. As the pair talk to
the audience, their story unfolds via series of criss-crossing
monologues that lay bare an awkward, barely there affair that's more
about confirming each other's right to be apart than anything that
happens when they're not quite together.
Sophie has been brought
up in the Isle of Man, Jonah in a religious commune. Both come into
money via their dead parents, and end up living on top of each other
in a London suburb. He watches her as one might view a reality TV
show, while she keeps her distance, and they only meet for the first
time after a near fatal accident brings them briefly into the same
sphere until they go their separate ways once more.
Joe Murphy's
co-production between Soho Theatre and the nabokov company is a
charmingly quirky concoction that's as much emotional show-and-tell
as drama. As Jonah and Sophie, Thomas Pickles and Lizzy Watts make a
sweetly endearing pair, who punctuate the play's everyday oddness
with an understated and deadpan humour that underpins the story's
tenderness without any need for schmaltz. Such stylisation captures a
low-key absurdity as well as a warmth that's engagingly infectious
throughout. The result of all this is a moving and funny snapshot of
two people who learn to live beyond their losses, even as the
fleeting moment of something that might resemble happiness passes
them by in an instant.
The Herald, February 24th 2014
ends
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