All things seem possible for 19-year-old black American Sam in Ella Hickson’s compassionate (and often very funny) short new play. He believes he can be whoever he wants to be – unlike the disenchanted English girl Joey, just a few years his senior, whom he encounters high on a New York rooftop as Christmas approaches. They are, perhaps, typical of the attitudes held in their respective countries.
From a playful opening revealing the differences in the way in each of them views their chance meeting, Hickson delves into more unsettling territory as they unexpectedly meet again closer to earth. Sam, it transpires, is carer to Joey’s estranged father, George. He’s determined to keep his early onset dementia secret from his visiting daughter and, desperate to preserve his dignity, tries to pass off Sam as a rather unlikely friend.
Joey, still angry about his sudden disappearance from her life and her mother’s current involvement with one of his ex-colleagues (who happens to be Muslim) is too preoccupied with her own lack of employment to realise why the former academic is behaving so erratically.
Hickson has a clever way with dialogue and James Dacre’s likeable production is blessed with a poignant performance by Ian Gelder’s declining George (his English reserve worn thin by fatigue, too much whisky, and anger at his irreversible predicament) and an irresistible one from Anthony Welsh as brightly optimistic Sam.
Olivia Hallinan looks lovely but doesn’t quite inhabit the part of law graduate Joey to the same degree, and although it occasionally loses focus, this three-hander proves once again that Hickson is definitely a playwright to watch.
Trafalgar Studios (2), Whitehall, SW1A 2DY Tube: Charing Cross (0844 871 7632) ambassadortickets.com/trafalgarstudios Until April 30th (£19.50–£24.50)
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