Fecund Theatre was one of the first young companies to see the possibilities of new technologies in the theatre. Here, writer and director John Keates has provided snapshots of the emotional landscape of a generation as they grow from teenagers to young adults and into maturity. Hello You intercuts the stories of a group of loosely connected people. Its message may well be that as middle age zooms towards you, the sourer life becomes.
Certainly, nobody seems very happy. Not dumpy Natalie, a supermarket merchandiser with a drink problem; not Frank, who has pissed away his life working in a call centre dreaming of a career in music; not precious storyteller Lillian, with her hang-ups about her mother; definitely not Michael, torn between his friendship with Frank and his demanding wife, Monica. None of them are people you would really want to spend much time with, and two hours without an interval is far too long in their company.
None the less, the play presents some potentially interesting debates about Peter Pan syndrome, the tension between creativity and security and the search for happiness. There are odd moments, underscored by an emotionally atmospheric soundtrack, that magnify the aching void that comes with the realisation that there is an unbridgeable gap between the person you might have been and the person you are. Unfortunately, Chekhov did this kind of thing much, much better a century ago.
There is also something rather absurd about the form that Keates has chosen for the piece. When you are told that what you are about to see is "a rough draft for a film", alarm bells start ringing. If you want to make movies, go and make them, don't try to shoehorn a film script into a live performance. It simply doesn't work - not least because kitchen-sink realism, often wonderful in films, is one of the most inert of all theatrical forms and the most boring for an audience to watch. Dressing up the script with a few film directions and some video doesn't make it any more interesting.
The cast work hard and well together, but it is a shame about the play. Sorry, I mean the film.
· Until September 27. Box office: 020-8237 1111.
