Director: Lynne Parker
Writer: Rory Nolan
There is a yellow line painted down the middle of the kitchen table. Pato and Patti’s 40th wedding anniversary is coming up, and they’re spending it in the same house but decidedly not together. They’ve been separated since the inquest of Pato’s mother, who was poisoned with weed killer. They bicker and pick at each other, until they can take no more and use ‘the wall’ as a get out clause to avoid communicating. The references to the wall are continuous, and as a metaphor it fell stale and as a joke it didn’t hold.
Liam Carney and Clara Simpson had so much potential together, however this play gave them no real opportunity to connect or engage together in any meaningful way. The wall between them was the lack of cohesion in the play. It was struggling to decide if it was all a melodramatic, comical lark or was it a romantic drama. As a result it didn’t fall into any bracket, and the wall ended up breaking the connection between the content and meaning. Unfortunately substance was missing from this play. Kwaku Fortune’s handyman offers a bit of relief in his comical exchanges with the couple, but again was another character falling victim to underdevelopment.
As a viewer it felt like watching a writer do a sketch, a vague stereotypical outline of what a miserable married couple would look like, without filling in the detail. The music at points made it feel like a sitcom, and the familiar cosy set heightened that. At times there was poignant, quiet music playing during scenes that didn’t require it, the dialogue may have been more impactful without the music to manipulate the viewers sense of the scene.
There were a good few laughs in the show but they didn’t do enough to quell the disappointment at what was ultimately not a substantial play. The second half in particular was abrupt and the ending itself was cringe inducing at how thrown together it felt. While the play had many ingredients that were great, they were mismatched and didn’t make a cohesive whole. With a title as grabbing as You Belong to Me, it was disappointing to discover that there was little emotional truth in the tale.
Runs Until 21 December 2023.
The Review's Hub Score
Had potential
