Meeting the right person and starting a new relationship is hard enough, but when you also have to do it in rhyming couplets while searching for the meaning of your life… in Woking – well, it’s that much more challenging.
In James Woolf‘s delightful new play Jo and Sam Find Themselves in Woking, that’s just what Phoebe Marshall and Kieran Dee as the titular couple do so spectacularly, bringing this fledgling millennial relationship to colourful life in Katherine Reilly‘s minimalist staging, full of fourth-wall busting audience asides, tongue-twisting repartee and drunk-acting belly laughs.
I was captivated by this refreshingly original romcom. And following a performance at London’s Hen & Chickens Theatre, I thoroughly enjoyed discussing it with writer James Woolf and director Katherine Reilly – who previously collaborated on one-woman show Empty in Angel, which, in life-imitating-art fashion, also influences this latest offering – as well as stars Phoebe Marshall and Kieran Dee.
What are the challenges of writing in modern verse? And of making it sound totally natural in performance? Do millennials view existential angst differently to the rest of us? What’s the backstory to the play within the play? Where should we go when we all visit Woking? (Naturally, Prince Andrew’s Pizza Express does get a mention.) And what gives your life meaning?
Terri Paddock founded WhatsOnStage.com and the WhatsOnStage Awards, running the company and its events from 1996 to 2013. Terri is also the author of two novels, Come Clean and Beware the Dwarfs, and has previously written for the Evening Standard, Independent, The Times and other national publications. She is renowned for her 'legendary' post-show Q&As and also produces the annual Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and acts as a digital, content strategy and event consultant for theatre, producers and other clients. She tweets about theatre at @TerriPaddock.
