If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet at Bush Theatre

If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet at Bush Theatre

03 November, 2009
by: Miguel Cullen

A truest sense of what is real and what is fake can be gleaned, as anyone who had an awkward moment making conversation with trick or treaters knows, from the crystalline perspective of a kid. At 25 If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet's author Nick Payne [winner of the George Devine Award for the Most Promising Playwright 2009] - has this gimlet eye in full effect, and has used it to create an cast of beautifully observed sinners, saints and fools. The show is currently playing the excellent Bush Theatre in West London.

Anna [Ailish O'Connor] is an overweight fifteen-year old getting bullied at school. Her mother, Fiona [Pandora Colin] is a teacher at the same school. She is less than favoured by Anna's contemporaries, or as one coyly puts it, "a full time c*nt".

So, Anna has a pretty weird relationship with her mother, and her dad, [George - Michael Begley] a horribly winsome eco academic, is too busy preparing for the great flood to be around. Anna is in dire need of some attention, and along comes her twenty-something Uncle Terry, who is kipping on the family sofa following a return from a nebulous 'break'.

Terry is played with incredible skill and relish by Rafe Spall; his rough diamond geezer turn is instantly hilarious. His accent alone puts the cat amongst the pigeons in this settled suburban household.

He carries the play out of what could have been an anodyne sketch of prissy middle-class mores, igniting it with tales of eel & pie bravado that seduce the audience and unwittingly, one confused, never-been-kissed adolescent.

Anna's feelings towards Terry are at their most captivating when they are ambiguous; there is a brilliant and hilarious scene when Terry sprawls on Anna's bed at night for a shoulder to cry on having been humiliated by the love of his life. O'Connor's wavering from disgusted, to approving to faintly seduced is excellent, and I couldn't help be slightly disappointed when the plot rides roughshod over titillation by plonking her firmly in his arms. He refuses, terrified, and from then on the play is a different one.

Whereas before the play relies on Terry's wit, he now disappears, leaving Anna alone with her family to deal with the heavy theme of incest. The play seems then to lose its momentum as we crave another Terry incursion.

It is perhaps the mark of the playwright's lack of experience that all the characters are caricatures, bar Anna – perhaps the only one who Payne can relate to.

While Terry's character indulges the audience, George plays on our very British sense of embarrassment; we cringe during a daughter-father curry in which he blunders about in the minefield of teenage emotions with extreme awkardness. 

The small set is ably decorated with sky blues and clouds that contrast markedly with the Anna's not so dreamy coming of age. The audience is set out in a semi circle, and the close quarters make for fascinating people-watching as you see the play hit its mark. The music is strictly contemporary, with tracks from Bloc Party, The Cribs and James.

Re-reading the play it becomes clear that this is a performance that owes a huge amount to the script. George's eco lectures at his university, all stammers and patronizing rhetorical questions, are acutely observed, as is Terry's lovelorn ne'er do well. However these roles contain fragments of reality without quite coalescing, while the only really nuanced performance comes from Anna – she is such a bag of emotions that she could only ever be ambiguous – to create a powerful study of the enduring shame of adolescence.

All photos via bushtheatre

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Miguel Cullen