Previous Fringe First Winner Paul Charlton (2003's Love, Sex and Cider) returns six years on with a piece that has moved from depicting hormonal and anguished teenagers to exploring a fractured marriage between two 29 year olds in a more mature affair that is still darkly comic.
This two-hander is delivered with monologues from each side as Sam (Neil Granger), watches a football match on the internet, his latest obsession, while wife Anna (Claire Dargo) tries to work off a few "extra pounds" in the gym.
Each character is highly strung. Sam, the dreamer, is sucked into the alternative life the internet offers, highlighting that although created to simplify our lives, the online world's temptation to do things we know are wrong is too easy by simply clicking a few buttons. He's torn over his lust for a 22-year-old trainee teacher and over Facebook, becomes obsessively compelled to look at images of her, while he's unfulfilled in the aftermath of post-university idealism.
Anna, the pragmatist, is fed up with Sam's attitude and her attempts to re-kindle the flame of their fire that has begun dwindling after seven years of marriage. His words and actions have magnified her imperfections, turning her into a stressed-out, espresso-downing gym freak, draining her confidence while she longs for the simplicity of life that they once had.
Their narratives are delivered over the course of one night; Sam's taking place throughout the duration of the Man City vs. Burnley game and Anna's during her gym session, culminating in them both finding out something that will affect both of their futures in extremely different ways.
Charlton's Crush is a tightly-crafted piece that delivers some brilliantly phrased lines, while opting for subtle moments of emotion between the biting humour.
Yet the direction (Ria Parry) and pacing of the piece could have worked better, allowing for a more complex evolvement of characters that rely on hyperactive talking and angry shouting. Although delivered effectively by both Granger and Dargo who are charming and stellar performers, there is a notable lack of chemistry due to the imaginary wall of their separate settings, which does reflect their isolation from each other but gives the performance a slightly disjointed boundary.
The result is an engaging, fastidious piece of theatre representing a situation we could all easily find ourselves in and possibly have, delivered at an adrenaline pace as the characters surge through, building to a climax that should be a powerful, heartrending frame of despair but fails to reach its distressing potential.
Times: 11-30 August (not 19 Aug), 3.15pm
© Lindsay Corr, August 2009