Two figures in matching eye-popping day glo tracksuits burst into the arena. Clearly, we must keep our eyes on Max and Stevie; are they about to engage in a gladiatorial fight to the death? No, it’s more serious than that, they are negotiating a teenage boy’s terrible rite of passage, the first kiss.
a brilliant
Max (Scott Fletcher) and Stevie (Gavin Jon Wright) first appeared in 2018 in the hit comedy Square Go. Playwrights Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair now put them in the second year at Hammerston High School preparing for the end of year dance in a fast-moving, hilarious, beautifully observed comedy. This time the pair deal with `never been kissed’ agony hence the title VL, Virgin Lips. The recognisable anguish of those days hilariously evoked for onlookers of all ages.
Orla O’Loughlin’s direction is pitch perfect, the comedy and poignancy of the situation zapping round the arena (a perfect space for the show) and into the audience.
Fletcher and Wright’s performances do not miss a beat as these two grown up actors inhabit the torrid world of teendom. Our heroes both deny being VLs, creating rules about the eligibility of their alleged snogs. We spend the evening of the dance with them with hilarious one-liners and observations sparking off by the minute.
Fletcher’s Max, a sensitive soul tries but fails to play it cool while Wright’s Stevie is all talk, mainly malapropisms. Wright also takes on a clutch of other characters, each a polished cameo, the laid back girl classmate the boys adore, the rapping class bully, Max’s mother’s horrible boyfriend.
A brilliantly hilarious eighty-minute depiction.of the tribulations of youth.
