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A girl well worth knowing
Some Girl I Used to Know The New Alexandra Theatre **** FIRST we had the coming of age dramas and
comedies and now we have a bittersweet coming of middle age laid bare. That realisation that youth, like friends, is
something you have left behind without noticing – until now. In Some Girl I used To Know Denise Van
Outen is Stephanie Carnworth, successful fashion entrepreneur, escaping
to her room in a high class hotel for a break from the launch of her new
range of lingerie - and for a respite from persistent and annoying
fashion journalist Abbey Ambrose. Her marriage to Paul is OK, not soft focus and
starry eyed any more, but OK – comfortable more than sensual perhaps and
a victim of work with both husband and wife often only seeing each other
as they fall exhausted into bed at night. The only physical contact often a morning kiss or
as Stephanie says “more an accidental collision of faces”. This is the minutiae of middle aged marriage, the
moans and irritations, where passionate loving together has given way to
the more practical living together until . . . Enter Sean, the love of her life, at least he was
some 20 years or so ago. When Sean pokes her – that’s a nudge to get
your attention on Facebook by the way for those with a more earthy
vocabulary - it opens the floodgates to a torrent of nostalgia. Stephanie is a teenager back in the 80s again,
she tells how she and Sean first met, the Hollywood nightclub in Romford,
Through Stephanie we meet Slaggy Sue who seems to
play not just the field but the whole county, her brother Gary and we
are back among the sort of things teenagers and youngsters think and
talk about. We learn that bright red, shiny glossed lips
might not give your mouth quite the image you are trying to achieve,
that a chipolata in the Albert Hall is not the biggest turn-on in the
world – oh, and if you ever go round to Sean’s mums’house don’t use the
face towels.
Sean having found Steph again is on his way to
the hotel, and Steph is in danger of swooning like a schoolgirl again.
Whether the married woman’s reality of now or the teenage fantasy of
then gains the upper hand is the crux of the matter. Van Outen co-wrote the one woman play with
songwriter and novelist Terry Ronald – his first play - and it does have
some very funny throwaway lines as well as some poignant moments. The first act sets the scene building up the
world of Steph and the characters who inhabit it layer by layer, the
second strips them away again, exposing the despair and anguish of
broken dream, promises annostalgia.d relationships.
Linking it all are some songs from the era with
the likes of the Thompson Twins’ Hold Me Now and Billy Ray
Martin’s Your Loving Arms, an original song, Some Girl I Used
to Know, used almost as a theme, and perhaps best of all Culture
Club’s Do You Really Want To Hurt Me, which stripped of its
reggae beat is a half decent, emotional romantic ballad. The final scene closes with Soft Cell’s Say
Hello Wave Goodbye in a low key end as Steph sees where her life has
taken her. There is nowhere to hide in a one woman play and
Van Outen holds the stage from the moment she walks into her hotel room
set. We very quickly become interested in her
character and soon start to care about Steph, feeling for her and
sharing her anguish, which is half the battle for an actor in any play. Van Outen produces a fine acting performance and
she displays her musical theatre prowess with an attractive, easy to
listen to singing voice. Each of the period songs is given the intimate
ballad treatment with musical director Garth Hall controlling the pace
on keyboards just offstage. It is rude, at times very, but never offensively
crude and despite the preponderance of women in the audience, it is far
more sophisticated and wittier than hen night fare. Roger Clarke
And from some bloke we know . . . **** IF this amusing one-woman play with music
proves anything it is that Denise Van Outen is an excellent actress who
really can sing. She co-wrote the story with Terry Ronald and also
plays career woman Stephanie Canworth, looking back on her life
experiences from a smart hotel suite after the successful launch of her
latest lingerie range. In some ways it’s very similar to Shirley
Valentine who chatted to her kitchen wall and then the audience before
jetting off for fun in the sun. Here, though, we have Stephanie going back over
the years, occasionally breaking into recollections with songs from the
80s and 90s like Hold Me Now (The Thompson Twins), Do You Really Want to
Hurt Me (Culture Club) and Say Hello Wave Goodbye (Soft Cell), plus the
enjoyable original number, Some Girl I Used to Know. The format works well and Denise certainly sings
beautifully, and she amuses the audience with cheeky sexual anecdotes
while reminiscing on emotional, exciting and sad times, and being
tempted to meet up again with an old flame, Sean, who suddenly contacts
her via Facebook and text messages. Does the liaison between the beautiful married
woman and her unreliable ex take place? Wait and see! Directed by Michael Howcroft, the play runs to
Wednesday night and pops up again at Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre on
February 20-22. Paul Marston
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hiding
her knickers before losing her virginity – the inspiration for her
present underwear empire. Then there is the break up, the angst and the
heartbreaks.