Party describes itself as a “funny and insightful” and in some ways it does deliver on this, but not without making you cringe. When watching this play, I was taken through a whole spectrum of experiences, from out-loud laughing at moments of genuine hilarity, to frowning at misjudged jokes that crashed and burned. When Party worked, it really worked, but when it didn’t it was a little awkward.

The first problem the production encountered was definitely the space. The whole set was confined to a long but very narrow area, that was so crowded there was little room for the actors to move, let alone cross the stage without being on top of the audience. There were some genuine attempts to vary the spacing of the characters, which would have been successful if it were not for the unfortunate stage size. The exception to this was when the characters performed hustings (or hostings, as two of the characters argued). This sequence was a burst of energy between the other slightly static scenes, in which the space was used inventively making the whole scene very funny. 

One positive was definitely the acting, with the whole cast portraying consistent and well-defined characters with energy throughout. Leila Caz was especially funny as the dippy Phoebe, delivering her character’s lines with good comic timing. Jonathan Lewis-Brown also gave an engaging performance as the deluded, but well meaning leader Jared. However, the acting suffered from a lack of subtlety, with there being little development or light and shade in the characters. This, admittedly, was not helped by the writing, which never quite broke away from caricatures shouting at each other. Overall, I found the writing held the actors back, with the dialogue sometimes being very witty and astute, but at other times problematic. Exchanges were occasionally full of awkward exposition, such as the reveal of a past relationship (“That’s why I broke up with you!”) and random moments such as unexplained sexual tension between two of the characters. Although these strange moments were the fault of the writing, I think the director should have felt confident to leave out jokes and lines that didn’t work in the space and with the actors.

This production definitely has a lot of potential, especially as inept students attempting to solve world problems is something most people at Cambridge can relate to. But this production gave off the impression of being slightly under-rehearsed, which may have been due to one of the actors dropping out last minute. There were occasional awkward pauses where I assume lines were forgotten, and moments where the actors did not seem entirely sure where they were supposed to be on the stage. I feel with more time to rehearse, the dialogue would have been slicker, the comedy delivered with more confidence and the script problems ironed out.

Overall, the subject matter was interesting, witty and appropriate for a freshers' play. The actors managed to portray characters which embodied all the different types of pseudo- revolutionaries one may encounter at university, but, while being often hilarious, the production lacked the subtlety and physicality that makes comedy consistent.