‘Beginning’ – Ambassador’s Theatre – Tuesday 27th February 2018

(Rated 5/5 ) 

A wonderful night including a wonderfully ordinarily real play with two of my wonderfully extraordinary friends, which could have been prevented by the weather! It tried its hardest… snow on and off all day… and as I tentatively made my way to the theatre to collect tickets I slipped ever so slightly on icy pavements… very anxious not to fall and break yet something else adding to my restrictedness. In a way just that little journey reflects the play itself – but I’ll come to that in a little bit.

So tickets collected and another shaky potentially perilous trip of just a minute to get to the nearest Rosa’s Thai café – awkwardly struggling along to get nicely fed and then back again to the theatre. Still thankfully no major catastrophes… We also managed to navigate a very tiny ladies’ bathroom – with just 2 cubicles – trying not to bump into each other and strangers as we shuffled around and in and out… Getting to our seats relatively easy thankfully – asked by a lovely young man to ‘find your way to your row, for me, please’ - and then enjoying some of my favourite music from the 80s – maybe representing the end of Laura’s party at which the play starts…

Awkwardness resumes as Laura (Justine Mitchell) tries to begin a liaison with stranger Danny (Sam Troughton), the last lingering guest at her party. Ok and here’s where I want to be careful to avoid spoilers – though her motivation becomes clear and their attraction yet avoidance – the dance of intimacy so to speak – is all together charming, funny, painfully embarrassing and endearingly uncomfortable. It feels so honest and as such so refreshing compared to maybe the more usual rom-coms. Their revealing and hiding interaction is played out in real time as we can see too from the clock on the wall of Laura’s kitchen. Two-handers seem to be becoming more common in plays – I’ve seen some excellent ones in TV soaps before now ;)… back to that in a moment too – and I love them and feel in huge admiration for the actors carrying that. Right and here’s the soap connection that I got totally wrong and feel the need to apologise to my friends and Sam Troughton – who I mistakenly thought was Declan Bennett who played Charlie Cotton – Dot’s (June Brown) grandson in ‘Eastenders’. Yes she has been in fantastic two- and even single- handers in that show. Anyway Sam is in fact – in real life ;) – the grandson of The Second Doctor – in real life lol Patrick Troughton. So my muddledness prevails ;) Sam is excellent! And so is Justine, but for some reason I found it slightly harder to engage with her character initially. The play is written by David Eldridge and I wonder if – for me – he didn’t quite connect with the woman’s POV in places. Still his dialogue was perfect in its naturalness and keeps us hooked all in one scene with the ebb and flow of underlying emotion and external actions of his characters. The play’s director is the highly accomplished Polly Findlay – who also directed ‘Antigone’ starring two Doctors ;) – the Ninth (Christopher Eccleston) and Thirteenth (Jodie Whittaker).  Great set – just enough room for the two characters to be able to avoid each other - and yet small enough so they can collide.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and do like the space-restricted Ambassador’s in keeping with some of the themes of this play and evening.

Beginning – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2018