![Alison (Rosie Thomas) giving the brush-off to Tom (Jon Brown) in the Barn Theatre's production of My Romantic History [Picture: John Davies] <i>(Image: John Davies)</i>](/resources/images/15702971.jpg?type=mds-article-962)
MY Romantic History by DC Jackson played at the Barn Theatre in Welwyn Garden City. Joseph Kerr reviews the play.
YET another original and excellent choice at the Barn Theatre following the outstanding musical Into the Woods.
This new, award-winning comedy about office romance, with spicy dialogue, is about love, loss and laminating machines.
Tom, at the end of his first week in a new job, hooks up with Amy at the Friday night drinks session.
They are in a relationship before they know it, and Tom sees Amy as trying to tie him down.
The problem is that neither of them can quite get over their childhood sweethearts.
He can’t forget Alison Hamilton from his schooldays and she has never recovered from her teenage affair with Calvin Kennedy.
Jon Brown as Tom is hilarious, continually interjecting his private thoughts about his sex life, delivered directly to the audience just as they were in the famous film Alfie.
His lack of self-esteem, coupled with his convoluted attempts to extricate himself from Amy’s clutches, all expressed in forthright modern dialogue, are an excellent performance.
This is matched by Laurie Skelton as Amy, pert, sparky and disenchanted by turns.
In the second half of the play we see the same stuttering relationship repeated with her private thoughts added and the hilarious situation is compounded.
The other three members of the cast, Alessia Procaccini, Rosie Thomas and Oliver West, display their versatility by playing all the other characters in their lives – office staff, former boy and girlfriends and granny, to contribute more humour to the fast-moving, rapidly changing scenario.
The composite set is simple. For a play about office affairs, the essentials are a desk and a bed, and that’s all we get, highlighted by a series of back projections to define each location.
The play is extremely perceptive about shaky relationships and the fear of making the right choice, and regrets over previous mistakes and misunderstandings.
We also see the reactions to their previous partners’ current choices, expressed with jealous amazement.
The many asides to the audience about what the two main characters are really thinking while with their partners are continuously very funny.
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