Rating: ***
In Stefan Golaszewski’s Sex with A Stranger we’re dropped right into the post-club conversation between Grace (Jaime Winstone) and Adam (Russell Tovey) as they both awkwardly try to summon interesting things to say whilst waiting for the bus that’ll deliver them to Grace’s bedroom.”That club was really good, wasn’t it?”; “I actually like buses”; “I wouldn’t want to be too famous” – these are the nuggets you will variously laugh and cringe at as the pair make their journey via bus, taxi and foot. Meanwhile the chronology is shuffled to give us a better picture of who these people are – and particulary in Adam’s case – where they come from.
The dialogue given by the central pair comes off hilariously vacuous yet somehow you don’t judge them too harshly for it. These two have nothing in common but the desire to shag, yet must spend an hour or more together en route – what else do they have to talk about but Homebase? It must be said that the attention to detail in this regard is brilliant – all conversations throughout are invaded by tedious observations about brands from Coca-Cola to Sainsbury’s between characters that sadly – and quite comically – share no spark.
There are a lot of quick edits onstage, perhaps inspired by film, that while admittedly interestingly do work much better and less awkwardly in film. Further there are three scenes that focus on one character onstage for a notably elongated period, which, with the exception of the last, labour the point and add little.
Having dominated for much of the first half of the production it is a pity that Winstone is so absent in the second, apart from one difficult-to-place wedding scene and a spot of pre-going out hair-teasing. Not only is she missed for the laughs she provided earlier but this imbalance doesn’t allow Grace’s character to develop in quite the same way Adam’s does.
The remainder of the play goes to Adam and his partner, Ruth (Naomi Sheldon), who is shown at home earlier that day making Adam’s lunch and preparing the shirt that will see him later pull Grace. Initially an irritatingly one-dimensional character, Ruth blossoms as the play continues to a fully-realised, very convincing type of person, worried by and withering in a relationship that is no good for her. Without entirely diminishing the feelings of pity you might have for Adam – he’s not happy either – you leave feeling pretty strongly that he’s been too cruel to Ruth.
But in the end the play diverts too much attention from Grace at its own cost.
Sex with A Stranger is playing at Trafalgar Studios 2, SW1 until 25th February 2012. Tickets are £12 – 25 and can be purchased here.
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