We're caught in a trap
I can't walk out
Because I love you too much, baby
Mark and Fran need a holiday. It’s been a bad year, what with Mark being withdrawn since his dad died and Fran going out more, drinking. Oh, and shagging that guy …
Fair to say that they are drifting apart; Fran considering leaving, and they are at the point when that “Do you still love me?” question could bring it all crashing down.
Mark makes an effort with a candlelit dinner (which she misses) and a time travel holiday Romantic Package, with an upgrade to an Elvis concert in Hawaii in 1973.
Next stop Milton Keynes, and then Rome 46BC in time for supper. They are met by Simon a world-weary (and time tired) travel rep who assures them that they can’t change anything – they have a department to fix temporal discontinuities.
What seems more difficult to fix is their mistrusting and dysfunctional relationship. Sexual tensions are raised in Regency England, and on the Titanic, it looks like cling on or sink. When Mark gets the chance to travel into their own past he jumps at it, shadowing their early dates to see how to put things right.
At the Elvis concert they will need to find if things can be better, if love still has them trapped and whether they can get past suspicious minds.
The production is a neatly staged radio play, almost a show about a show, which cleverly makes four people sitting behind desks into theatre. While the leads don’t act demonstrably, taking on their characters’ ennui, it’s still possible to invest in their bitter-sweet and sadly comic tale. The host of other characters and the mechanics of the live Foley effects keeps it all entertaining.
While it’s not a wholly original concept, this light mocking of our tendency to romanticise the past is worth enjoying in the moment.
Show Times: 2 – 28 (not 9, 16) August 2017 at 5.30 pm.
Tickets: £7.50 (£6.50) to £10 (£9).
Suitability: 16+