Writer: Laura Thurlow
Laura Thurlow’s 60-minute exploration of a series of terrible exes feels like a 30-year throwback to a time when female characters blamed themselves for relationship mishaps while staring into bottomless cocktails, asking why they are so unloveable and waiting for some man to rescue them from themselves. A Preoccupation with Romantic Love which concludes its Camden Fringe run at the Hen and Chickens Theatre is a pity party to which we’re all invited and one that will leave you frustrated by the lead character’s lack of agency or responsibility for her choices.
Shaken by a series of disastrous relationships with toxic men, each one of them leaves a voicemail message on Laura’s phone providing an opportunity to return to those encounters, tell the audience what happened and perform a romantic exorcism with some tarot cards live on stage.
Described as ‘a darkly funny, poetic monologue about letting go of the dream of ‘The One’ and loving yourself in their absence,’ the tone of Thurlow’s show isn’t yet clear enough, looping back too frequently to the character’s continual insistence that she will be alone forever. There are moments of humour and many of the ex-boyfriends prove reasonably ridiculous in their behaviour, but Laura’s response is too accepting of their criticisms while making excuses for the kind of man they are. There is certainly no sense that Laura has emerged stronger and wiser from the encounters or that the show is being ironic about her responses.
Nor is there any particular self-awareness in A Preoccupation with Romantic Love that could reorientate this material and give it stronger purpose. Writers like Dolly Alderton have taken their dating disasters and turned them into valuable (and highly comic) lessons learned, taking the audience under their wing and sharing all the lows of looking for love in the wrong places. Thurlow could use some of that reflection here, not just a personal therapy session about a series of unsuitable men but a chance to consider what the writer has learned, changed, become as a result of these relationships.
Voiced by Charlie Blanshard, Daniel Camou, Max Aspen, Mustapha El Yousfi and Toby Jeffries, the men are all strangely similar while Laura’s feelings for them and the hurt they left behind is all the same – has she really loved six people in exactly the same way and still feels those barbs so intensely years later in some cases? If so, then the show needs to give those men greater presence, to colour in their absence so the audience can better understand the difference between Dylon who appears to catfish Laura, Sam who calls her the most selfish person he’s ever met and Johnny who hides more than one secret. None of them seem remotely loveable in the snippets we see so it becomes difficult to empathise with Laura’s cumulative sense of loss.
Thurlow is an engaging performer, open and at ease on stage, yet A Preoccupation with Romantic Love also needs to explain why Laura’s perspective matters, if her experiences are typical, part of city living and how they fit in with her wider life – where does she work, what is her lifestyle, in what ways does she tangibly exist like the women in the audience? Laura needs agency, to create her own personality onstage, one that isn’t just determined by six voices on an answering machine but tells the audience about her choices and her future.
It’s fine to be openly looking for love, but without agency, she’s just an unfashionable 1990s woman still dreaming of a Prince Charming she will never find.
Runs until 17 August 2023
Camden Fringe runs until 27 August 2023
