Like many actors who turn to writing, Sophie Wu has a knack for nifty dialogue. Her debut play is an engaging, quirky 80-minute piece about the kinship of oddballs and the disruptiveness of innocence. It shows enough promise to make you hope that Wu in future pushes herself further.
Wu’s setting is the west coast of Scotland where Jim, a 32-year-old loner who collects crustaceans and acts as a luckless tourist guide, is being badgered by his 19-year-old girlfriend, Pocahontas, to settle down. She dreams of marriage, a job as a mortgage adviser and a four-bedroom house: the fish-loving Jim is more thrilled by the prospect of a world crustacean congress in Frankfurt.
What changes their lives is the unexpected arrival of an English weirdo, Ramona, whom Jim has not seen for 15 years, since the two of them lost their virginity on a beach while awaiting a rare meteor shower. The best scenes are those that flash back to that first brief encounter.
Both characters are a bit like the hermit crabs Jim assiduously collects and Wu writes well about the affinity between natural outsiders: Ramona and Jim are two solitaries who discover a shared passion for Enya’s Orinoco Flow and make love with a fumbling awkwardness that leads Ramona to briskly conclude: “That’s sex done and dusted.” Too many kooks can sometimes spoil the theatrical broth but, while Wu understands the appeal of eccentric oddities, she also empathises with Pocahontas who, despite her extravagant name, craves only a life of normality in a family home with black-and-white pictures of New York skylines.
Ramona’s confession, when it comes, is predictable and the play has an anecdotal quality. The dialogue, however, is sharp and Mel Hillyard’s production, which switches easily between past and present, is well cast. Ruby Bentall as Ramona offers a clinically accurate study of someone who seeks to hide their social isolation under a surface cool.
Joe Bannister is equally good at conveying Jim’s haplessness, especially as he sees the Highland tourists he seeks to enthuse drifting away. Amy Lennox, latterly seen in Lazarus and Kinky Boots, also catches the pathos of the girlfriend who longs only for a life of numbing routine. It’s not exactly an earth-shaker but, as a dramatist, there is clearly a good deal of wit to Wu.
• At the Bush theatre, London, until 21 October. Box office: 020-8743 5050.
