Justine and Michael are flatmates inclined to bring their jobs home with them. Justine, whose life is all work and no play, is in a permanent state of rage, and driven to drink by her boss, Nigel, a middle-aged ex-hippy who has everything her generation can't afford – financially or emotionally. Michael, an agoraphobic, earns his living pretending to be a woman and offering phone sex to men such as Saddo, who has appalling sadistic fantasies about his own daughter. At least Justine and Michael have each other to lean upon; who can you really trust in a cold, alienating world?
What a brave, brutal 75 minutes this is from Lucinda Coxon, who turns a cool gaze on the disconnectedness of contemporary life and lets nobody off the hook: not the characters, and definitely not the audience. You can put your hands over your eyes and ears – and there will be moments when you will want to – but that's just burying your head in the sand. Or you can watch, and risk being a voyeur. It's nasty; but it's a sad, truthful nastiness about devastating loneliness and the corrosive effects of feeling that we must hide behind hard, bright, spiky smiles.
Justine risks allowing herself to be vulnerable; Michael discovers he is more dependent on Saddo than he thought. There are no winners here, except the play, which gets the relentless, high-energy production it deserves from Anthony Banks, and faultless performances from Olivia Hallinan, Philip McGinley and David Michaels. Like Saddo's sick fantasies, it worms its way into your brain. See it, and shudder.
