Writers: John Berry and Elly Tipping
FML is a fantastic show – laugh-out-loud funny but with a deep core. Jane vomits colourfully into a bucket when it opens. Joe, beside her in the bed, has headphones on, absorbed in his Xbox game. But it wasn’t a party they’d been at: it was a funeral. A suicide. For these Eastbourners, Beachy Head is an ever-present reminder of the ultimate pointlessness of life.
Their relationship is tetchy. Jane, the articulate one, is forever launching into a list of Joe’s shortcomings. Whatever Joe says comes out wrong, and he quickly retreats into silence. Our sympathies bounce back and forth. We find ourselves on his side when he reveals Jane has said some unforgivable things about him at the funeral.
It’s hard to imagine how such a scenario could be funny, but it’s partly the taut, witty writing of actor-writers Elly Tipping and John Berry. And a great deal is down to their effortless performances as small tensions build and they start to shout over one another.
There follows a series of punchy, unpredictable scenes. Jane, having stormed out of the flat, is now at Fran’s. Fran ( Annie McKenzie) herself is a marvellous creation. Can it be true she’d accidentally electrocuted herself in the bath while drying her hair? And that this effected a sort of Damascene conversion? At any rate, she seems to be the grounded one, proffering tea and biscuits, suggesting Jane tries to see things from Joe’s point of view. Why is this funny? Because Fran, while delivering solemn therapy-speak (‘the universe will deliver’), has a tiny dustpan and brush to hand to sweep up the biscuit crumbs, then comes in with a full-blown handheld Dyson. And just as we notice that Jane is wearing a dog lead round her neck, Jane herself notices that the dog – Joe’s beloved dog – has disappeared.
The play never misses a beat. The action switches between the locations with some neat scene changes. There is a particularly funny scene in a hospital where Jane is visiting a patient. Sitting on the end of his bed, Jane finds she can finally articulate her unhappiness. The patient, however, appears to be comatose. But nothing in this riot of a show is ever quite what it seems.
Both McKenzie and John Cormack have splendid comic timing, their characters the perfect counterpoint to the bruised but somehow sympathetic Jane and Joe.
A splendidly inventive, perfectly acted mature comedy
Reviewed on 16 August 2024
Camden Fringe runs until 25 August 2024
Inventively dark comedy
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