What happens beyond the therapy room, when patients venture off the couch and out into the world? A question posed and answered by the Birmingham Medics’ Performing Arts Society. Your life in their hands.
Prudence and Bruce meet through a small advertisement in the newspaper. They appear ‘normal’ enough, until an admission from Bruce opens up a cacophony of issues subsequently navigated by the intrepid duo. They are ably assisted (or hindered) in their quest for true love by their respective therapists and a series of caricatures. There is the over-sexed Texan, the mad upper-class Englishwoman and the gay lothario who is in love with his mother. Obviously, it all descends into farce.
The show is a series of sketches, each of which could stand on its own but together form a cohesive plot. The essential furnishings are there: the couch, the teddy and the copy of Fifty Shades, as are the essential components of psychoanalysis; free association, oedipal complexes and penises. Something for everyone in a sense.
Nicola Deacon and Suzanne Raffles excel as the two female leads, playing their larger than life characters with great gusto. Prudence begins as a fragile character, but soon begins to mirror the madness around her. However, it is Mrs Wallace who is the star of the show. As a therapist, she is completely mad, but her outrageousness is played with complete conviction and a ton of fun. The men are not quite so convincing. Bruce is played straight, camp and mad. That works, but there’s a sense that the actor has not yet relaxed into the role. Bob is played as a camp, nudity loving, gay man, but he’s too over-the-top to be entirely believable and slightly sinister in the process. Despite this, there is a general sense that everyone is having a jolly good time anyway.
Christopher Durang’s writing is good, but at one hour and 30mins, it is too long. Lengthy dialogues, which sagged a little in the middle, could be cut. That’s not to say it wasn’t good value for money, which is more than could be said for the therapists.
