A group of thirty-something former/current friends/lovers at a secluded retreat for New Year.  It sounds like a mess, and it very quickly becomes one, as life and love are played out with all the exuberance of youth but for much higher stakes.  This makes for an entertaining play, but one with a confused identity – at times a drama, at others a comedy or a farce, it is never precisely one, and fails to fuse the three.

The set doesn’t quite give the right feel.  ‘Outside in the woods’ is a white flat screen beyond the door, and no house, no matter how old and quaint, has a banister rail quite so unevenly spaced.  Thankfully the music and radio excerpts beforehand and between scenes more than made up for this.

The cast is good but Rozzi Nicholson-Lailey is perfect – warmly friendly, icily confrontational and convincing when miserable, she is by far the most endearing character, and hosts the party and the play with all-round excellence.  Only Mary Galloway has the talent to match her with a Rebecca attuned to just the right level of bitch.

However, the play invites stereotyping, and the director has not restrained some of the characters from being drawn too far in.  Daniel was perched precariously but kept on the right side of the farcical divide by Ed Eustace, and James Bloor gave a suitably flippant Adam.  But while Ned Carpenter’s character, Ben, is a bit of a twit, he was overplayed to a farcical level that was not compatible with much of the play.  

The writing doesn’t help with this.  George Johnson never has the opportunity to take Carl beyond wet and largely hopeless, while Genevieve Gaunt has no chance trying to fit a hysterically depressed, Ribena-drinking Laura into the mix.  The script never really carried me with it – it felt like it was trying too hard.  Bombshell revelations kept on coming with such frequency that they lost all force and resonance.

The actors have done a commendable job.  This play is definitely on the “amusing – pop along” side of three stars than the “distinctly average – don’t bother”.  I will take away from this play the fact that life over thiry looks very complicated.  But even if it was the script that was largely responsible for not engaging me, I can’t give any more stars to something that only made me chuckle, and didn’t really make me think.