In advance of its 2025 Edinburgh Fringe run, Izzy Radford’s lively new play, Seating Plan, previewed at the Union Theatre, embodying every element of a winning summer rom-com. The play features clashing personalities, missed opportunities, and enough ‘will-they-won’t-they’ tension to keep the audience hooked until the very end.
At the core of Seating Plan’s charm lies its characters. Mavis, played by Radford herself, is loud and lacking in self-awareness. She epitomises the person at the dinner table that most people would rather not sit next to, yet everyone knows the party would not be the same without her dramatics. In contrast, David (George Airey) is dorky and loveable, but so laid-back he becomes the forgotten guest. When the pair find themselves seated next to each other at a birthday party, they consider it misfortune. When they find themselves seated together at the same party, year after year, despite all their differences, they start to wonder if it may actually be fate.
Seating Plan’s premise is simple, but thanks to Radford’s engaging storytelling, the play still evokes questions about the directions our lives take and the chances we don’t take. Each scene offers a morsel of insight into how the characters’ lives progress, and how their feelings and desires – both spoken and unspoken – develop. Through the play’s dialogue, Radford captures everything that makes British comedy brilliant: quick wit, self-deprecation and the perfect amount of silliness.
This playfulness is enhanced by the casting of George Airey, who brings spontaneity and stellar comic timing to his role of David. His complete understanding of this charismatic but sensitive character leads to a mix of genuine laugh-out-loud moments, as well as tenderness and palpable yearning. It takes a real appreciation of romantic comedy as a genre to strike that balance correctly, especially in such a short space of time, but Airey and Radford get it spot on. If Mavis and David were characters on a glitzy smash-hit sitcom, they’d become the Internet’s latest favourite pairing to root for.
That said, the play’s intimacy and unpretentiousness make it excellent. Just like how Mavis and David’s place at the neglected end of the party table gives them space to be flawed, silly and fun enough to grow towards each other, Seating Plan’s simplicity makes room for an undeniably joyful story to develop.
