Tag Archives: New Diorama Theatre

LYNN FACES

★★★

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

LYNN FACES at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★

“a provocative piece that isn’t quite ready for primetime”

Laura Horton’s new play, Lynn Faces, is a raw take on a woman who is on the verge of turning 40, and trying to escape from a coercive relationship. For protagonist Leah, this means forming a punk rock band with two of her friends and an unknown drummer, and hiring the local bingo hall for the band’s first performance in front of an audience. The group is named Lynn Faces, after Lynn, the long suffering PA in TV’s Alan Partridge Show. It’s an engaging set up, but taken as a whole, this play fails to deliver on its initial promise.

Lynn Faces relies on the audience to know who “Lynn” is. And also to understand why a large stuffed cow might fall on top of the drummer. References to the Alan Partridge Show are littered throughout, beginning with the appearance of the band in Lynn masks, and “snazzy cardigans.” We learn that Leah, prompted by best friend Ali (vocals, keyboards) once went around with a camera asking random people to put on “Lynn faces” so she could photograph them. That’s how she met ex-partner Pete who she is attempting to exorcise by forming a punk band. If all this sounds a bit confused, that’s because it is. Lynn Faces jumps around from being a punk band with actively bad musicians and even worse songs (based, you guessed it, on catch phrases from the Alan Partridge Show), to a woman on the verge of middle age having a breakdown.

Madeleine MacMahon as Leah, Peyvand Sadeghian as Ali, and Holly Kavanagh as Shonagh are all talented actresses. Playwright Horton makes a surprise appearance on drums. She appears late in the show playing the mysterious drummer Joy, before being felled by the aforementioned cow. The team make good work of establishing their characters, often with the bare minimum of dialogue. The antics between tough talking Ali and the innocent crafter and teacher Shonagh generate enough energy to crochet Lynn Faces together when Leah’s breakdown threatens to stop the show in its tracks. But the biggest energy drain on the show is not Leah’s breakdown, and her refusal to call ex-boyfriend’s behaviour for what it is. The show lacks the raw energy of punk to drive it forward because the musicians are terrible. Even though they’re supposed to be. Without authentic punk energy, however, this show threatens to be just a patchwork of snazzy cardigans and pearls, fishnet stockings and tartan trousers. Without punk, there’s no power to fry coercive boyfriends on the spot. Pete lingers instead offstage, or as a minuscule avatar back projected with gaslighting phone texts that trigger Leah’s traumatic memories.

Lynn Faces is a provocative piece that isn’t quite ready for primetime. Sometimes one’s favourite TV show can be a distraction from the main event. Punk, on the other hand, is an instrument for reclaiming power. Even if we have to fake it. The redemptive power of punk is the real story in this show. And despite the weaknesses in the plot, Horton’s imagination shines through. With some rewriting, and some genuinely good musicians who know how to play really bad music, Lynn Faces could be a winner.


LYNN FACES at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Summerhall – Main Hall

Reviewed on 25th August 2024

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Dom Moore

 

 


LYNN FACES

LYNN FACES

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Brenda's Got A Baby

Brenda’s Got a New Baby

★★★

New Diorama Theatre

BRENDA’S GOT A BABY at the New Diorama Theatre

★★★

Brenda's Got A Baby

“Come for the comedy and side-line the sincerity and you’ll be hard-pressed not to enjoy this show.”

Brenda’s Got a Baby, an original work premiering at the New Diorama Theatre, borrows its title from a 2pac song. The song tells the harrowing tale of a young, impoverished girl who has a baby at twelve that she cannot support and quite literally throws away. Through the story of one girl, 2Pac seeks to lay bare something truthful about the black experience. Jessica Hagan’s piece flips this on its head in this comedy-drama, with emphasis on the comedy.

Brenda, in Hagan’s reimagining, is the presumably white classmate of Ama, a British-Ghanaian, middle class, ex-grammar school girl from North London. Brenda had a baby at 16, plus four more between school and shortly before Ama’s 28th birthday when they bump into each other at a supermarket. It’s here the story begins, with Ama, a high-flyer fulfilling everything her mother and school expected of her, looking down her nose at Brenda. This meeting starts a chain of events that cause Ama to spiral and ask whether her fancy job, new flat and, on the surface, perfect boyfriend offer her everything she needs before she hits thirty.

The first act introduces us to Ama (Anita-Joy Uwajeh), her family and boyfriend. Everything looks great for her and is approached with realism. But just before the interval, Ama decides she must have a baby by thirty and a bomb-like countdown clock appears above the stage, signalling a descent in the second act to totally exaggerated, telenovela style theatre where Ama is driven mad, pretty literally, by her ticking clock.

It’s an incongruous mix. Not just for the fact that it feels like two different pieces smashed together, but for the way serious and sincere topics are treated against the farce. Ama’s sister Jade’s struggle with fibroids seems to make an important point about women’s health, and in particular black women’s health outcomes. But this plays out, briefly, and without much depth, against a bizarre episode where Ama tricks her sister’s husband to come with her to her fertility clinic appointment masquerading as her own husband.

It’s difficult to know what to make of this show. There is plenty that feels underdeveloped, not least the infantilising set of rainbow puzzle pieces. But the comedy is good, both in its writing and performance under Anastasia Osei-Kuffour’s direction. Edward Kagutuzi as Jade’s husband Skippy is hilarious as a sweet and well meaning wannabe Christian rapper, and his physical comedy with Ama’s boyfriend Dami (Jordan Duvigneau) receives plenty of uproarious laughter. It is just that these comedic moments are so outlandish, and the plot twist so wild and unexpected, that the rest of the more serious content fades into obscurity.

Come for the comedy and side-line the sincerity and you’ll be hard-pressed not to enjoy this show.


BRENDA’S GOT A BABY at the New Diorama Theatre

Reviewed on 8th November 2023

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Cesare De Giglio


 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

After The Act | ★★★★★ | March 2023
Project Dictator | ★★½ | April 2022

Brenda’s Got a Baby

Brenda’s Got a Baby

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