A descriptive escapade around Paris

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

It’s not an easy task to open a show in January, and I imagine it’s even more of a task when you’re a two-cast amateur show opening in January, but the cast Steve Feeney and Kat Seddon, along with director Leigh White deserve all the success and more with this comedic yet easy-watching play.

Set in Yorkshire, Bet and Al are on a turbulent relationship fuelled by loathing and bitterness. Life is tough. Money is tight, And the fire? Well, that went out long ago. Al spends his time in his shed, whilst Bet spends hours, days even, entering magazine competitions to win anything and everything. But, it’s the holiday to Paris that really sets her soul ablaze.

It’s going to take some listening and some imagination power to really immerse yourself in this play. You’ve not got the power of a changing set design to move you along, but, what was brilliant in this production was the descriptive language and delivery from the cast which transported and carried you through and to the next scene.

Stepping away from the action to fill in feelings and thoughts, the use of soliloquy was brilliant in this play to add depth and allow us to get more detail. There are also plenty of uses of split staging, which performed together was very effective – especially in adding to the comedy. In particular, the scene in the restaurant with the toilets and the cafe and the shopping were particularly funny.

What I truly loved about this play though was how it was so reminiscent of a late 80’s / early 90’s comedy British sitcom. You won’t be splitting your sides in hysterical laughter, but you will just constantly chuckle. And, I mean constantly. In the most descriptive way I can think, I just constantly loudly exhaled through my nose – you know the kind?

It was just SO real and SO believable. It was as though your mates had come round for a cuppa and were telling you all about their holiday. It’s the kind of play that you watch back in real-time seeing the action coming to life, I almost felt like it was a past tense situation being descriptively talked about, and you see your audiobook come to life right in front of you – in the best way possible. There were some depictions of mental health, struggles I feel from both side, which were sensitively handled. These were real people, with real issues, with real struggles, This is real life.

I felt Kat Seddon and Steve Feeney were wonderful together. They showed a real strong chemistry and the pipeline of tired from the grind couple to reigniting their love trajectory was both believable and honest. Both members of the cast had brilliant facial expressions, projection, and were always fabulously reactive. I felt Kat and Steve were so in sync and both just played their characters to excellence. They would deliver lines and just deliver them in the right way to really get the humour across.

Set design is modest with a clever use of boxes, and chairs to move between scenes. I would’ve liked to have seen more subtle changes, such as the picture on the left side of the stage being taken down from the living room to distinguish better between the boat and the house, or the Mona Lisa being taken down earlier to distinguish between the Louvre and the living room as they were sometimes distractive to the immersion.

I thought sound and lighting was particularly strong – especially the gentle sounds of the piano playing in the background, and the changing of lighting for different moods and distinguishing between clubs, and the outdoors.

This really is a wholesome show that will guarantee to put a smile on your face and have you pricing up a trip to Paris for spring-time!