Make the most of each and every moment – for tomorrow, they’ll be gone. That’s the core theme of this touching, entertaining, but deceptively intricate three-hander, which starts as a warming love story but ends as a contemplation of how to savour our short time on Earth.
The introverted Raf yearns to be an artist, but he’s playing the percentages by studying maths and forming practical plan for his future. By chance he meets Mel, an infectiously impulsive dreamer, and together – swept along by bohemian fantasy – they flee to Paris. It’s a time of wonder for both of them, when the mundane seems magical and anything might be possible; Raf in particular grows and blooms before our eyes. There’s drunken philosophising, a beautiful poem, and unselfconscious dance.
But we know all along that this joy will quickly end. Intercut with the romance, we see scenes from a later phase of Raf’s life: one he lives without Mel, and without the fire she lit within him. The question of what’s happened hangs over the play, and when the revelation comes it’s a masterclass in dramatic understatement – the crowning highlight of playwright Liliana Newsam-Smith’s perfectly-balanced script.
The love story’s not without realism, as Newsam-Smith points out how selfish it can be to shape other people to fit your own dreams. Evie Carricker plays Mel with hidden nuance, confident on the outside but too shy to let her own inner artistry shine, while Arran Kemp portrays Raf’s gradual unbuttoning with quiet credibility and power. There’s a stripped-back stylishness to the production, with each scene change cleverly featuring a lingering glance at what’s just been left behind, and the sparing soundtrack is ideally matched to the tone of the play.
If the Parisian scenes offer tenderness, much of the humour’s provided by Kaya, who shares Raf’s flat in his post-Mel storyline. Utterly self-obsessed and exquisitely annoying, her determination to organise Raf’s living space threatens to spread to his whole life. But she’s more self-aware than she first appears – and by the end, actor Natalia Leaper has evolved her character from a comic pastiche to the wisest of counsellors, offering closure to Raf and the audience alike.
Is it better to plan your future, or just to relish each day? There’s no right answer to that question, and this deftly-layered play makes thought-provoking arguments for both sides. But there’s one unambiguous message it leaves us with: that life must be lived to have meaning – and that dreams, as well as memories, can be as vivid and precious as anything tangible or real.