This is a debut play by Ifeyinwa Frederick about three Essex-born, 25-year-old female friends enjoying a holiday in Ibiza. For much of its length it feels like a bright, breezy, unusually candid sitcom, but in seeking to show the crises under the smiley surface, Frederick does a rapid gear change from which the play, however promising, never quite recovers.
Frederick’s gift is for showing that even close-knit friends have their own separate identities. Bim is a British-Nigerian with an Oxford degree, a limitless appetite for sex and a belief that masturbation is like meditation. She is protected from her excesses by the outwardly more mature Alex, who is secretly panicked by the prospect of settling down with her white boyfriend. Meanwhile, J (Jasmine) is an unashamed careerist already regretting her decision to abstain from sex for three months.
Although the trio talk freely about vibrators and vaginas, dance to girlbands and dress smartly, they are also victims of the insecurity that often hits young adults known as “the quarter-life crisis”. That’s fine as a subject, but, especially when it comes to a climactic debate about non-consensual sex, you feel Frederick doesn’t do enough to prepare the ground. Lakesha Arie-Angelo’s production has a hectic vivacity and there are strong performances from Marième Diouf as Bim, Aretha Ayeh as Alex and Nicola Maisie Taylor as J.
The play has the smell of authenticity, but in suddenly switching from comic to serious mode, Frederick is in danger of pooping her own party.
At Hampstead theatre, London, until 1 December.
