Writers: Paul McNally. Kieran O’Flaherty, Guy Newsham, Amelia Pike and Martina Cohen
This second series of Union Shorts offers another highly entertaining programme of new short plays. In the black box space of the Union Theatre, there’s little more than a few chairs and an occasional suggestion of place created by lighting. The plays are all snappily directed and one follows another smoothly and swiftly.
First up is Released on Licence by Paul McNally, a delightful piece in which two young women on a train recognise one another as fellow inmates of a low-security prison. One is an exuberant, unabashed sex worker (‘prostitute,’ she corrects). The other, a studious character, has had a short spell inside following a Just Stop Oil demonstration. Released on Licence playfully suggests that it’s not the sex worker who is being exploited and degraded by her work, but in fact, it’s the middle-class young woman. With her ‘library vibe,’ as the other names it, her sights are set low. She’ll be content, she says, to secure the unpaid internship she’s going for. The comedy is heightened by the arrival of Rupert with the catering trolley.
Responsible, Like, by Kieran O’Flaherty, is pleasingly opaque. A middle-aged gay man seems to have been followed home by a much younger, cockier guy using Insta. The older is embarrassed and awkward. We’re aware that he has a partner who’s expected home any minute. There’s a daring twist, and just when we’ve got used to this, there’s another – when the off-stage partner appears it’s the same young actor. Are they role-playing? We’re not sure. But the play itself has something to say about father-son relationships and becoming parents as well as ageing and its insecurities.
Photo Finish by Guy Newsham risks making funny an uncomfortable discovery. Young women, sisters, Fran and Ell are clearing up their mother’s things after her funeral. They are oddly breezy about it all, even when the mother’s underwear drawer reveals what looks like love letters tied in red ribbon. They remain breezy when they discover the envelopes reveal dick pics. It doesn’t quite work, not only because the supposed polaroids themselves are unconvincing but because the play deliberately avoids any sort of believable emotions.
The absurdism of Six Pack, on the other hand, works brilliantly. Written and directed by Amelia Pike, the scene opens with a young man, Hayley, crouched on the floor, handcuffed to a pipe. Enter another young man who assesses the situation. This is his sister’s flat. Hayley must be another of her boyfriend-victims. Unable to release Hayley, the other man offers him a beer. The situation turns the otherwise banal conversations that follow wonderfully bizarre.
The final play, Boyfriend Material, by Martina Cohen is a more complex ensemble piece involving eight characters. At first, each seems alone, as one by one they step forward to deliver a monologue. But with much pleasing storytelling, we begin to piece together relationships that exist. The older Jewish man is gay, but not out. The confident younger man, we realise, must be his lover, happily out, despite being a committed Christian. Things are complicated with the older man’s mother phones to say she’s employed a matchmaker. Another young man is devoted to his girlfriend – except he’s acquired a second one, to whom he’s equally devoted. We get glimpses of other points of view, other feelings involved.
All the storytelling is punchy and entertaining, and there’s some impressive acting along the way.
Runs until 11 April 2025
