Apart from some questionable sightlines, Charlotte Gwinner's production of Nancy Harris' new play, Our New Girl, sets the bar for 2012.
Is the idea of a nanny called Annie really that funny? Maybe, but the audience reaction to this set-up seems more like what Fisun Guner calls reliable theatre-laughs, and they come faithfully with the start of Nancy Harris' new play. Set in a predictably sleek kitchen that houses lawyer turned entrepreneur Hazel, her plastic surgeon husband Richard, their troubled eight year-old son and now the nanny called Annie, Our New Girl goes on to defy all expectations and prove what bold, onward-looking writing can do and the involuntary reactions it can elicit.
The periscopical view of Our New Girl is so far-reaching that it feels lazy to lump this play in with what might otherwise be called middle-class theatre, though it is to all intents and purposes set in a very wealthy home. Still, the dynamic that Harris creates between failing perfectionist Hazel, her absentee adrenalin-junkie husband, their emotionally neglected son and his needy nanny calls into question much more than the troubled lives of London's most privileged. She allows them all to consider their place in the world beyond their family, as well as their sense of self, and the list of doubts and instances of self-reckonings are endless.
Struggling with the last stages of her second pregnancy, Hazel tries to fight off the realisation that by society's standards she is failing as a businesswoman, a mother and possibly a wife. Harris uses the lawyer in her to question exposure, liability and incompetence in the contract-free role of the parent. The script is perfected in Kate Fleetwood's hands and her steely portrayal points a finger at the limits of our resilience and self-sacrifice.
Similarly Hazel's husband Richard – performed with quite a dashing take on egomaniacal by Mark Bazely – nobly takes up his role as a burns specialist working with a charity in Haiti. With him Harris draws on, as Richard puts it, “the human disasters that follow a natural one”, including a severe breakdown in communication. When in London, he resumes his position as a smarmy plastic surgeon, predictably but poignantly admired by the nanny. Their issues combine to leave their son confused and neglected in a home where he's protected from pictures of Richard's burns victims but not from his parents' cruelty towards one another. It all culminates in one of the ugliest scenes of a group of adults turning needlessly on a child.
And this is where the audience come in to create a near-perfect theatre experience. They audibly recoil, gasp and jeer (at a respectable volume) in reaction to Richard's taunts and Hazel's desperation. In some ways the audience become the nanny called Annie, made to watch as a family implodes, but we don't have the added pressure of trying to position ourselves in that household. Our New Girl sets the bar for 2012 mighty high. 
Our New Girl runs at Bush Theatre until 11th February.
Image by Manuel Harlan
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