Looking at loneliness from a horrifying new low, Lucinda Coxon's Herding Cats is creepily good says Naima Khan.
On Garance Marneur's blank, white set, Justine and Michael are free to be who they want. Their sofa is big and their rug is soft, they are well cushioned in their comfort zone, which is odd because Michael's pretending to be a woman for money and Justine is passionately complaining about her boss.
Writer Lucinda Coxon's intensely dark play, directed by Anthony Banks, offers a peak into the stagnant existence of two flatmates whose attitudes to life are poles apart. She shows us the lives they perform and the people they perform for, among whom, in this theatre setting, we are included.
Michael, played to perfection by Philip McGinely, works for a chatline, taking abuse on the chin as he pretends to be whoever his callers want him to be. He even takes on the eerie voice of a little girl during a conversation with a particularly disturbed client, which makes for some especially uneasy scenes. These, however, are cleverly balanced with the hilarity that sees him carefully channel the ugliness of his work into his own personal domain.
In contrast, Justine is emotionally invested in a job she loves and a boss she hates. She pours the professional into the personal and loves to hate the murky mess she creates. Actress Olivia Hallinan (Lark Rise to Candleford, Sugar Rush) gives her a sensitivity beneath the armour which comes off when she's at home with Michael. She delivers Justine's unrelenting stories of office nightmares with a physical intensity that makes it difficult to look away, though she struggles to make the torrent of worries flow naturally.
The female figure of loneliness seems a little blunt next to the quieter Michael. Justine is the one who articulates her despair. “I'm going to fall in love,” she says with resoluteness, and “I'm so lonely” follows soon after. She is at the breaking point that Michael hasn't quite reached. But with scene changes set to music that provides a transparent soundtrack to their lives (The Smiths feature amongst others) the tension dissolves. Had Banks chosen to follow through with the sheer creepiness of Herding Cats, he'd leave his audience stunned by the end.
Coxon's play, which is essentially about the familiar theme of cosmopolitan isolation, works because looks at it from a new, horrifying angle. Michael's job is so dark you don't want to think about loneliness getting worse than what he and his clients go through. His sweet nature, his patience and understanding towards Justine, only makes it harder to watch him try and block out the wider context of his small life, before we realise we too are ultimately voyeurs. 
Herding Cats runs at Hampstead Theatre until 7th January
Image by Nina Sologubenko
Click here to read Naima's interview with Lucinda Coxon.
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