This comedy play How Does That Make You Feel?, is being presented as part of the Camden Fringe and is a short play lasting only an hour.
The venue is the Lion and Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town, London, which is a lovely pub with an upstairs theatre catering for a maximum audience of only sixty. If you can drag your self away from basking in the sunshine in the beer garden, you are in for a treat.
The play has been shortlisted for a Channel 4 comedy award and has won the Player Playwrights Comedy of the Year.
The play concerns Trevor a double glazing salesman and doting husband who has found out that his wife is secretly going to relationship counselling and unwisely insists on trying to help. He is totally unaware that he is the route cause of her problems.
Trevor is an archetypal geek. He dresses in baggy shorts and a tank top and looks idiotic. His wife, Kirsty is gorgeous and vivacious, the very opposite to her husband. They are a totally mismatched couple. It turns out that when they met, Trevor saved her life and then refused to take no for an answer when he suggested that they get married. Now a few years and two children later, Trevor and Kirsty’s marriage is badly in need of fixing.
She has enlisted the help of a relationship therapist, Sebastian, and their relationship becomes hot to say the least. Sebastian tries to persuade her to leave her husband and set up home with him which is hardly ethical.
Kirsty is the only really complex character in the play with a disinclination to leave her husband while happy to enthusiastically grope (and be groped) her way through every therapy session.
I won’t spoil the finish as it is quite unexpected if a little contrived.
The play was well acted by the whole cast with Saria Steel as Kirsty outstanding. Saria has appeared in a number of theatre and tv productions including Silent Witness and a number of National Theatre of Scotland’s productions. She is a real star in the making.
Sabastian was played by Ethan Chapples who put over well the character of the therapist lost in lust.
Tom Bonington was good but his character Trevor was something of a cliche. Did he really need to have a Jasper Carrot accent? Did he really have to be so irritating? Did he need to dress in a tank top?
The play was written by award winning writer John Hill and directed by Manuel Bau and is supported by Player Playwrights. How Does That Make You Feel will continue making the audience feel good at the excellent Lion and Unicorn theatre until the 27th August and is a part of the Camden Fringe. See it, but don’t take your maiden aunt.
Reviewed by Graham Archer
HOW DOES THIS MAKE YOU FEEL plays at the Lion and Unicorn until 27 August 2016
