Writer: Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson
Director: Ben Purkiss
Advertising executive Alex is trying to pee in a rundown pub toilet in his girlfriend’s home town. Only he can’t go, because of the presence of Liam, a local who uses the toilet to stash cheap beer, snort lines of coke and hide from the upwardly mobile mates he hates, is making him pee-shy.
The set-up of Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson’s Sniff is at least original. The contrasts between the two characters are nicely drawn: Liam (Fogarty-Graveson) is cocky but stuck; Alex (Felix Grainger) is confident in his job, but losing it in real life because out in the pub waits the girlfriend to whom he is trying to pluck up the courage to propose.
Despite their differences, the characters spark off each other well and the gradual exposure of their own inadequacies and insecurities – sensations that make them more similar than either would care to admit – is enjoyable enough. Grainger and Fogarty-Graveson are effective foils for one another, giving a sense that the pair could well have been friends if their very different paths had crossed earlier in life.
The use of flashbacks to expose more about each character’s backstory is a clichéd device, but forgivable here, at least at first. Despite an unstable home life Liam does seem to be making a niche for himself as a youth worker. But he gets addicted to gambling sites, taking out loans he can’t afford to try and recoup his losses.
What could be an exploration of the shady tactics of gambling companies, including their ad agencies as represented by Grainger’s hotshot exec, is undone by an unrealistic impression of what an agency’s role actually is, both in Alex’s interactions with Liam in the pub toilet and in his own flashbacks.
There is a germ of an interesting idea here, with Fogarty-Graveson associating the way traditional gambling encourages repeat play with the way mobile games’ “loot kit” systems use similar techniques to ensnare young people to pay more and more. The dopamine rush associated with addiction, and how that’s better available in the relationship bonds both men struggle with in the real world, is also nicely hinted at if under-explored.
Sadly, instead of examining those relationships in any greater depth, Fogarty-Graveson unsuccessfully tries to turn the whole piece into a thriller in order to create a definitive conclusion to this hour of theatre. While one of the several surprises presented in the closing minutes is at least set up in advance, there is a sense of opportunity wasted, of an interesting message being buried by an uninspiring, cliché-filled finale.
Reviewed on 26 July 2022
