It’s odd. Very odd!
Following on from Laura Horton’s 2022 near perfect, sensitively written award-winning Breathless which focussed on mental illness and hoarding and which transferred successfully to off-Broadway, we have something of a hand-brake turn into her latest vehicle, Lynn Faces.
The story follows almost-40 Leah, wannabe lead singer of newly assembled punk band Lynn Faces. We join them as they are about to play their opening gig.They wear masks of Lynn, the eponymous long-suffering, snazzy-cardigan-wearing assistant to fictional comedian Alan Partridge.
Problems are racking up: firstly, none of them can really play any musical instruments (with the exception of an excellent grade 3 recorder solo!), oh, and the drummer hasn’t turned up. But, who cares, the show must go on!
This plays cleverly into that dream that we have all had of going into an exam, or on stage without any preparation. It is a bit excruciating!
In between some epically bad songs and some, to be fair, pretty good ones (in spite of their limitations), we discover that Leah also has personal problems, which unfurl as the set progresses. She has just ended an on-off toxic relationship with her boyfriend, or has she? Will the gig give her the confidence and strength to move forward or will its failure consign her back into penury.
It is hard to believe that it is the same writer, or indeed that this has any script at all. Lines are crashed or mumbled, backs are turned, lights turn on and off, at one point a huge crocheted cow falls on the late-arriving drummer (Horton). This is madness, and not necessarily in a good way.
In the Battle Royale that is Edinburgh in August aiming for So Bad Its Good can very easily turn into So Bad its Bad. It’s a dangerous game to play, perhaps the mark of an over-confident playwright.
I can see where Horton is aiming, but unlike, say, The Play That Goes Wrong, where the slickness of the multiple failures is integral to the charm of the piece, you really have to look in a completely different direction, with different eyes, to fully appreciate this one. I’m not sure many will.
But hey, What do I know? Horton may be a genius, she may just have created a whole new genre, Punk Theatre, but when I look around the auditorium it’s pretty vacant.
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 7th August 2024
North West End UK Rating:
Running time – 50mins