A HILARIOUS AND POIGNANT INSIGHT INTO WORKING-CLASS RELATIONSHIPS

By Samara Watts ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Press Invite

With young people turning away from drink, pubs risk falling out of fashion. But TWO at Park Theatre reminds us why they are still the beating heart of British culture.

The play invites us to a working man’s pub, and audience members take their seats around weathered wooden tables. The landlord and landlady welcome them as regulars, offering drinks, clearing empties and joking around like old friends. At the front, a bustling bar is lined with bottles of Babycham and Barbican larger.

This revival of Jim Cartwright’s 1989 two-hander wears its nostalgia openly, blasting 80s tunes from a glowing golden jukebox. Yet the characters feel timeless. As the landlady says, that’s the best bit about pub life: the people.

Kellie Shirley and Peter Caulfield are outstanding, slipping seamlessly into characters from all over the UK. Caulfield is at one moment a Scouser in a fluorescent shell suit, knee sliding across the floor, and the next a lost young boy clutching a packet of crisps. Shirley’s role as a hobbling hunchback is particularly convincing as she locks eyes with audience members, airing her grievances as old ladies do in places where people will listen. She then raises a toast to the comfort of Guinness, prompting the audience to lift their own drinks in quiet solidarity.

At the centre of the play is the landlady and landlord, who met outside the pub as kids. As they pull pints, tensions about their past and failing marriage bubbles deliciously under the surface. However, they disappear for too long, and their story appears slightly flat after the audience is enchanted by their eccentric patrons.

I found myself whispering to my mum the names of people we know who are hilariously like the couples who stumble into the bar. Everybody knows them. Mr Feeble Man trailing after his domineering wife, the shameless flirt mollifying his jaded girlfriend, the delusional other woman chasing after what she can’t have.

Alongside the raucous laughter, however, there are moments of cutting reality. A lonely old widower describes losing his love. There is a harrowing silence as a spotlight hones in on an abusive man threatening his girlfriend for taking too long in the toilet.

A hilarious and poignant insight into working-class relationships, the play captures the familiar ritual of going for a pint after a long day. Director James Haddrell uses the intimate space to emphasise community and connection, the kind you can only get in a British pub.

TWO is running at Park Theatre until Saturday 25 April.

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Photo Credit: Ross Kernahan