Writer: Jane Upton
Director: Hannah Stone
Designer: Abby Clarke
Sound Designer and Composer: Ellie Isherwood
Lighting Designer: Alex Musgrave.
Production photography: Pamela Raith.
Some people very much look forward to Christmas. I love a traditional Christmas but more than that I love the chance to review a brand new piece of theatre by the wonderous Nottinghamshire queen of the dramatic keyboard, the fabulously talented Jane Upton. She writes the most relatable characters and storylines and, in a good way, you never know where her stage intrigues are going to take you. Her latest is the two hander Scenes From A Friendship playing in the cosy Neville Studio at Nottingham Playhouse. Rarely do I get so engrossed with stage characters but with Katie Redford’s Jess and Benedict Salter’s Billy I find myself getting more and more into their stage persona’s highly credible lives due to faultless and naturalistic acting, excellent direction [Hannah Stone] and Jane Upton’s cracking stage storytelling.
I am neither gay nor had to bring up children but so warmly and so human are the portrayals on stage that I find myself being truly sympathetic to every twist and turn of Jess and Billy’s relationship with each other and the severe mental difficulties both encounter in trying to support each other through thick and thin, through rejections and anger, through love and pain. What is admirable and striking is the fact that Jane Upton has loosely used her own ‘friendship’ to form the base and the thudding heart of the dramatised couple. It takes some real playwright guts to do that. No wonder she wins awards. Us lucky Nottinghamshire audiences get the chance to revel in Upton’s imaginary worlds and we feel all our Christmases have come at once.
At the centre of the friendship between Jess and Billy, right from their child introduction to each other at first years juniors in Long Eaton in 1987, is their growing fascination with acting and how as they grow older that fascination leads to successes and stresses living the lives of artists. Jess becomes a writer and has serious issues giving birth whilst also having doubts about her writing talents and, after training to be professional actor, Billy thinks he realises his theatre dream as an assistant casting agent yet the daily commitment needed smashes his ambitions. Life gives him plenty of cruel knockbacks as a gay man wanting to raise a child and considering having a another child via a surrogate mother. All of these life encounters and more are played out on stage and full credit must go to Redford and Salter for their energies and expressive commitments and often very effective minimal body communications on stage that belay massive personal statements.
Within the art form of theatre they are ably assisted by spot on sound ques and electric lighting changes which zip us into the next episode of the compelling world of Upton’s startling good Scenes From A Friendship. This show has everything – it is warm, often laugh out loud funny, and is hugely believable. A total must see. Take a friend. Take several friends and their friends too. Take Father bloody Christmas! You won’t regret it. Playing at Nottingham Playhouse until 12th June. Running time one hour thirty-five minutes. No interval.
