Writer: Safiyah Zanabi
Director: Ché Walker
Who knows what goes on in the mysterious world of venture capitalists? Who knows what the ‘footsie’ really is? Or, why a coffee can cost upwards of £4 a cup? Can a Libra be compatible with a Pisces? Does switching lights on three times help anything? These are just some of the questions pondered by the two young female temps in this witty and droll 85-minute, two-hander.
Set at Capital Management, an anonymous money-making machine in the city, Nora is diligent and lives by the rules. Played with pent-up anxiety by Florence Guy, she obsessively writes Post-It Notes and To-Do Lists. Practical and hard-working, she hopes to be honoured one day with that laudable laurel of paperclips, Temp of the Year.
Upbeat Alia, the new girl sent by the agency, is, by contrast, an aspirational dreamer. Impressed by anything ‘cool’, she hopes to one day be a singer, maybe famous. Given to flights of fantasy and a belief in the unknown which spans astrology to random superstitions, she never does any work. She labours – or rather doesn’t labour – in the belief her stint at Capital Management, is a stopgap. This character, who sings beautifully, is played by the talented Algerian/British writer of the show, Safiyah Zanabi with a lack of guile and great comic timing. The two young women work who side by side over weeks and months, indicated by lights constantly going down and coming up, are for the main part, co-workers, not friends. And both have secrets that fester and grow.
Temps is one long water cooler conversation without the water cooler. In a Gen Z existential howl, the characters convey something bigger than the sum of their parts. The nature of their jobs becomes a symbol of an uncertain world, where everything has an illusionary, unreal quality and temporality is the name of the game. The word bullshit is used repeatedly and takes the place of Holden Caulfield’s ‘phoney’ world.
Upstairs, “they” make millions; downstairs, Alia struggles to pay her rent. Both characters embody the instability around them as they struggle to cope with private, personal anxieties. While the play is almost entirely static and takes place behind two desks, it is the opposing energies of the two temps and their limited observations of the world, that make for entertaining interactions. The character arcs take some time to reveal themselves and because Temps seems longer than it is, a more rigorous edit would serve the piece – although the long pauses and spells of lassitude arguably also speak to the humdrum tedium of this workplace drama. Light and fun on the surface, Temps has a philosophical heart and highlights the concerns of a disenfranchised and bankrupt generation through two memorable characters.
Runs until 25 June 2024
