Judith Johnson's play is exactly what the title suggests, a look at the members of a group of people who meet regularly to sing. It is a pastime that is becoming almost as fashionable as the reading group, and it offers the dramatist an opportunity to bring together a disparate group of people who in other circumstances would never rub shoulders.
When discontented Lucky wants to do something different, she is horrified when her gay friend Brian suggests they join a new singing group run by former pop star and gay icon Tanya. Dragged along against her better judgment, her worst fears are confirmed when the other members of the group turn out to be a teenager, Felicity, who is as bright and shiny as a new-minted coin, and Gordon, a nervous elderly man who has an uneasy relationship with God.
But Lucky finds herself going back week after week, and for her, as for the rest of the group, singing offers a form of release as they all learn to do as Tanya commands and "brush the policeman" who tells them they can't sing off their shoulders, open their mouths and let rip.
I feel rather bashful about liking this play. But I loved it to bits, in the way you love to wallow in a Sunday afternoon movie with a box of tissues to hand. It is an an Aga saga with a metropolitan setting - Stepping Out with singing instead of dancing. It is a play that is old-fashioned in more ways than one, not least in its entire lack of cool, either dramatic or emotional. The story is all heart, and unashamedly emotional as Lucky finds not just her voice but also her soul singing the Carpenter's Close to You, and the group joins together to sing Psalm 63.
There is plenty wrong with this play. The characterisations are a little too obvious, and some of the writing is limp, particularly in the first half. But there is also plenty right in the way it dispenses its quiet truths.
John Burgess's production is wonderfully fluid and beautifully acted, and I left with the sharp pain of remembrance that, like so many people, I sang all the time when I was a child and I never ever sing now.
Until July 13. Box office: 020-7352 1967.
