★★★★
Laura Horton’s follow up to Breathless, is at first glance a bizarre punk tribute to Alan Partridge’s long suffering P.A Lynn Benfield. Of course, with Horton’s work, you’d be a fool to judge her writing on its first glance. As, Lynn Faces, despite its thoroughly fringe show sensibility, has a depth and poignancy to it, rarely achieved in new writing.
The play is constructed like a real gig. We are in the audience for this untested punk-bands first (and only) performance, Horton is an excellent playwright, and it cheers my soul, that she doesn’t make ‘paint-by-numbers, Nick Hern Books’ work that most new writers seem to.
Leah (played by Madeline MacMahon) leads her punk band with the same timidity and awkwardness of their band’s eponymous namesake. Along with gutsy Ali (Peyvand Sadeghian) and dizzy Shona (Holly Kavanagh) they belt out Lynn inspired songs Partridge fans will delight in, ‘Lady Shapes’ and ‘Sex Fingers’ being two stand-outs beautifully realised by composer Anna Wheatley.
But as the band begin to argue and lose focus, we see Leah is dealing with the fall-out of an abusive relationship. Here the symbology of Lynn as a woman crushed by her bullying boss brings a stark reality to a great deal of British comedy. Lynn Faces is ultimately a show about escaping from domestic abuse.
The play reminded me of Mr Burns, a post-electric play by Anne Washburn, where pop-culture is used to explore bigger themes. It makes me glee in the fact that our pop-culture references could be so provincial, it’s wonderful.
Jessica Daniel’s direction is bold, giving a realism to the ‘gig going badly’ and Tabitha Stock’s design brief must’ve been mind-bending, ‘create what a band called Lynn Faces would look like’, remarkably she achieves it.
I’m glad that New Diorama Theatre, Norwich Theatre and Theatre Royal Plymouth co-commissioned Lynn Faces; as more theatre’s shy away from experimental and genuinely original writing, it’s still great to see work that is refreshing and different. BACK OF THE NET!
Lynn Faces is on at Summerhall – Main Hall until August 25th
