When Mike Leigh situated his social satire Abigail’s Party in “theoretical Romford”, pejorative terms like “chav” and “Essex girl” had yet to be invented although the county, even then, was saddled with certain reductive stereotypes.
Misfits sets out to set the record straight on Essex’s much maligned image by offering up its own dramatic corrective. Streamed online by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, it promises a celebration of the “Essex experience” in all its multiplicity, although, confusingly, its title calls to question whether its four central characters are comfortable in their Essex identities or feel like “misfits” within its confines.
All seem stuck in their lives, and some express a complicated love for the stomping ground of their birth. Tag (Thomas Coombes) can’t wait to leave the stultifying suburb he calls home, but after spending 10 years as an estate agent in Manchester, he yearns to be back. Fiza (Mona Goodwin), a mixed-heritage divorcee, recalls the racism of her childhood but also the exhilarating coming-of-age trips to nightclubs with her mates. Daisy (Gemma Salter) reflects on motherhood as she goes into labour and Anne Odeke (also a co-writer) is a black British maid from 1908 who reminds us that the country – and county – has a long history of diversity.
Co-directed by the theatre’s artistic director, Douglas Rintoul, and Emma Baggott, the actors perform with energy and exuberance, but it is a shame there is so little interaction or exchange on stage: they speak their stories standing or sitting for the most part, sometimes taking on the voices of accompanying characters. The monologue has proven to be a useful theatrical fallback for our socially distanced times, but here the four discrete narratives feel too static and the drama’s parts not cohesive enough. One monologue jostles the other off the stage or suddenly steals the spotlight and this contest is a clever concept, in theory, but it grows to feel contrived.
The writing by Odeke, Guleraana Mir, Kenny Emson and Sadie Hasler is the show’s biggest strength; there are plenty of zingy lines and much eloquent introspection. A hipster bar is like a “waiting room for an upmarket dentist” and a character finally embraces his Essex roots by declaring, joyously: “I am the bastard love child of Chas and Dave.”
These explorations of home and belonging are heavy on nostalgia but the play delivers its message that identity need not be tied to geography. Manhattan’s “big apple” is compared with Southend’s “shrivelled satsuma”, but every character speaks of it with as much tenderness as angst.
Available online until 22 November.
