Brighton Fringe 2017
Good People, Bad Day
Lovehart Productions
Genre: Absurd Theatre, Theatre
Venue: The Southern Belle, (formerly The Iron Duke) 3 Waterloo Street, Hove, East Sussex
Festival: Brighton Fringe
Low Down
A black comedy about three flatmates who struggle with the repercussions of their friend Emma’s actions, after she knocks out the man who she believes has come round to fix their boiler. Emma soon has an unconscious Danny on her hands and the flatmates have the dilemma of what to do with him.
Review
No-one, and I mean no-one likes to experience a bad day, no matter how good they may be. Yet circumstances, often combined with our own foolishness, can conspire against us more than is imaginable. Bad days have a habit of getting worse by the hour and we can all relate to this in one way or another.
This ‘bad day syndrome’ is what happens to three good flatmates, Emma (Bridgette Wellbelove), Leslie (Katherine Hartshorne) and Becca (Katie Wells), when a curious goggle-eyed young man (Lee White) appears on the scene to fix their malfunctioning boiler, and is knocked unconscious by the eccentric young Emma whose fascination with three former murders at the property cause her to momentarily re-inact them in front of him; and of course in the process he become yet another victim! She is a scatty young thing who spends much of her unemployed life living as a 1930’s crime-solving vamp, whilst sharing her fantasy life into a Dictaphone as a desperate escape from the reality of her own shortcomings. Of course, the other flatmates, well versed in Emma’s maddening behaviour seek to come to her rescue with genuine suggestions of how to resolve the mounting difficulties, yet this achieves nothing in the process and arguably makes matters worse.
The stage then is set for fifty minutes of stylised absurd theatre that does not disappoint. The cast give fine performances and great credit goes to Bridgette Wellbelove who is spectacular in the role of Emma and has also written the piece, that is so well directed by Milla Jackson. Let’s be honest, the stage of the Dukebox Theatre is tiny, yet the cast do well to manoeuvre around one another and somehow create an imagined space far larger than what is really there!
I loved this piece and so, I think, did the audience on the first night. The cast’s comic timing is second to none. Go see it and be confounded by this fine troupe who deserved all the applause they received on the first night.
