Dirty Great Love Story, the Fringe First Award winning comedy by Katie Bonna and Richard Marsh, has made its West End debut at The Arts Theatre. In truly comic fashion, it asks if a one night stand can go any further.
Richard is on a stag do, while Katie is on a hen night, cajoled by their friends they end up spending the night together in a Travelodge. But in the morning Katie makes a sharp exit and Richards heart is broken. Through fate or serendipity their social circles mix, and over the course of two years their relationship takes on a “Ross and Rachel, will-they-won’t-they” scenario.
This is a two-hander, but several characters are played by the male and female leads. There’s C.C. Who seems to talk only in text speak, Westy, the northern best friend and posh-boy Matt. Strangely, it’s these characters who seem to draw the biggest laughs.
Dirty Great Love Story is as much a comedy as it is a love story. More than that, the entire show is delivered in a wonderful fusion of poetry and prose, it’s a little distracting at first, but you soon fall into the rhythm and find yourself wondering at the vocal gymnastics of the two actors.
Ayesha Antoine plays Katie, and slips easily between the two characters. She has a very natural tone that made the poetic aspects less obvious in her characters, which stopped the prose from becoming too overpowering.
Felix Scott plays Richard, along with the two other male characters. His performance is wonderfully physical which really adds to the humour. The only distinction between the main and supporting characters is the performance, there are no costume or make-up changes, so it’s particularly impressive that only once in the whole show did I momentarily lose track of who was who, and that was during a scene with all three male characters talking in quick succession.
Dirty Great Love Story takes a predictable “will-they-won’t-they” plot and makes it entirely unpredictable with ingenious prose and clever comedy. You’ll undoubtedly leave feeling warm and fuzzy, with jaws aching from laughter, C.C. would definitely call Dirty Great Love Story a ‘lolzathon’.
Photos courtesy of Richard Davenport
