A young boy, wearing a cycling helmet, is hit on the head by a falling shoe. Puzzled, he looks up to the empty sky, and then takes sanctuary under a table, donning a saucepan for extra security. In that moment, a phobia - keraunothnetophobia, the fear of falling satellites, to be precise - is born. And so too, in this unlikely starting point, is writer James Graham's romantic comedy, which unfolds in the shadow of irrational fears.
Graham's writing has a freshness and lightness to it that Kate Wasserberg relishes in her first production as new plays director at Theatr Clywd.
Robin (Sion Pritchard) and Jacqui (Katie McGuinness) live five minutes away from one another, but can only meet over the internet. Panic, isolation, and terrible dreams of falling things hem them both in. Robin has been like this for ever; Jacqui since the 7/7 bombings in London, when she was trapped on the tube.
There are many moments to savour. Mark Bailey's set design, with two rooms on foundations that have been ripped apart from each other (and everything else), offers dreamy, sensual interludes, including a nocturnal rain shower that forms a turning point for the phobic couple.
Pritchard and McGuinness are both instantly credible, with Pritchard like a bewildered young Hancock, and very funny indeed, and McGuinness's character still aching for the life she so recently had. Di Botcher and Ifan Huw Dafydd, playing her mother and her father, share some tenderly written dead-end conversations as they reel from how their children's lives have crumpled. The writing sometimes feels a little sentimental - there is much play on the spelling of Jacqui: "you and I at the end" becomes a refrain for the couple - but this is a gentle, heart-gladdening love story that's warmly told.
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