CurtainUp
The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
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A CurtainUp London Review
Touch
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"You've got a massive brain . But you can't tell me what to think. alright? Human beings are not types. Let people surprise you, Miles." — Dee
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Miles (James Clyde) and Dee (Amy Morgan) (Photo: Helen Maybanks)
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In Ultz's bedsit full of all manner of stuff lives Dee (Amy Morgan) a 33 year old girl from Wales who has taken a maternity cover job in the big city, that is London. In the play she will take advantage of all kind of sexual experiences open to the newly single. Left behind at home is her former boyfriend, carpet fitter Sam (Matthew Aubrey) who has a new girlfriend, Kat.
The play opens with Dee bringing home Eddie (James Marlowe) and the strip club entertainment she has planned for their first date. In the strip she will improvise with suggestive kitchen utensils and continuing to tidy her flat, and using the Febreze in a provocative way!
Her sexy striptease is going quite well until Eddie sees a mouse run across the floor. It appears from the off that Eddie finds the state of her bedsit beyond the pale and here is the cue for his subsequent agenda of control. Deciding that even control can become a fun game if designed that way, Dee meets Miles (James Clyde) on a website set up to introduce people interested in bondage.
Meeting with Miles is after Dee has come home from the gym with Vera (Naana Agyei-Ampadu) who is a big, black, beautiful girl open to Lesbian sex. Miles' meetings have some tantalising planning amidst political discussion to decide whether she is ready for the sado-masochistic sexual encounter with the older man, who somehow reminded me of the novelist Martin Amis, whom one of my school friends had a relationship with.
Dee's final new sexual encounter for this play is with Paddy (Edward Bluemel) an intern in his late teens whose polished persona owes much to his public school education. Throughout these encounters we warm to Dee whose charming personality and lackadaisical approach wins over the audience. This means that what could have been a rather sad succession of sexual encounters is in fact a light hearted adventure in sexual freedom. The comedy is also helped by sexual suggestion rather than explicit nakedness and overt bump and grind.
The performances all round are excellent especially Amy Morgan as Dee who provides many laugh out loud moments in this diverting comedy about sex and the single girl who is very much in control of her own destiny.
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PRODUCTION NOTES
Touch
Written and directed by Vicky Jones
Starring: Amy Morgan
With: James Marlowe, Naana Agyei-Ampadu, James Clyde, Edward Bluemel, Matthew Aubrey
Design: ULTZ
Lighting Design: Richard Howell
Sound Design: Isabel Waller-Bridge
Dramaturg: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
A joint production between Soho Theatre and DryWrite
Running time: One hour 30 minutes without an interval
Box Office: 020 7287 5060
Booking to 26th August 2017
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 12th July 2016 performance at The Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE (Tube: Tottenham Court Road)
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