Play Review – Scarborough

Scarborough (2008)
Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, London.
Written by Fiona Evans
Dir: Deborah Bruce
Starring: Holly Atkins, Jack O’ Connell, Daniel Mays, Rebecca Ryan

I’m sitting in the Jerwood Theatre at the Royal Court having just concluded that it’s one of the strangest theatres I’ve ever been in. I say theatre; it’s a room no bigger than a good-sized kitchen and equally as hot. The play I’m watching is set in a bed and breakfast in Scarborough. One room of a bed and breakfast in Scarborough to be precise. The seats for the 40 or so audience members are actually part of the bedroom’s set, which explains why all around me people are perched on window-ledges, scatter cushions, a chest of drawers, a sofa, and in my case a huge wooden linen-box next to a dressing-table. We all look like students at a party in a Halls of Residence.

So far, most of the acting has centred on and around a bed in the middle of the room. Suddenly though, Lauren, (Holly Atkins) the female lead in part one of the play, leaps out of the bed in just her bra and knickers, heading directly to the dressing-table my right elbow is currently leaning on. The entire audience follows her movements. An audience that includes the actress who played Annie Cartwright in Life on Mars. So as WPC Cartwright and the rest of the audience are staring at Lauren as she brushes her hair in the dressing-table mirror, I’m trying desperately to not stare at her breasts. Which I do. Because they are practically poking me in the eyes.

She then stands up and starts talking to Daz, (Jack O’Connell) the male lead in part one. But she’s not talking directly to him as he lies on the bed. No. She’s staring in to the corner of the room as she speaks. Directly at my face. The conversation is serious stuff as she is a 29-year-old school teacher and Daz is her 15-year-old student. In the play, Daz’s birthday is tomorrow but as it stands right now, Lauren is a paedophile. I’m having a one-sided conversation with a paedophile whose breasts I was checking out moments before.

“I can’t go out,” she says. “Someone might see us.” She’s staring directly in to my eyes. I’m struggling to hold her gaze in what has now become a classic stare-off. I have to look away. But where? I can’t look down as I’d be faced with the breasts again. She’ll definitely think I’m a pervert then (even though she’s a paedo). I can’t look over her shoulder as WPC Cartwright is directly behind her and if I stare at her she’ll think I’m a bit star-struck. Either that or she’ll arrest me for eyeing-up a sex offender. In the end I drop my head, staring directly at my crotch. It dawns on me that Lauren might think I’m saying “check this out.” To be fair I’d stared at her chest so much she’d have every right. Instead she turns and heads back to the bed. So now I’m staring at her arse.

Later on in the evening, I'm leaving the offices of the Royal Court Theatre with the friend who’d sorted the tickets for the show (and who rather handily works for the RCT). As I waited for her to say her goodbyes, Holly Atkins, the actress who plays Lauren, comes outside for a cigarette before her next performance in an hour. “What did you think?” she asks me as I give her a light. Now, she probably meant what did I think of the performance, but in my head, after the eye-popping close up of her chest an hour before, I'm about to reply, “Not bad at all. Good shape. They looked firm. And I’m not even a breasts man so, er, yeah, really well done with that.” Instead though, we're interrupted by a middle-aged lady on a bike, who rides right up to Holly and says; “Darling. You were marvellous. And those tits! If I was a lesbian I’d fall in love you with you instantly.”

And with that, I had my new favourite chat-up line.

So, yeah, Scarborough. A hugely enjoyable play that has now finished at the Royal Court anyway.

Lee Krawczyk