It's a fact that 100% of divorces start with a marriage, and one that composer and lyricist Laurence Mark Wythe uses to his advantage in this cunningly structured musical four-hander about two couples: one on the brink of marriage and the other about to get divorced. Hollywood screenwriter John (former S Club 7 singer Jon Lee) and insecure Kat (Julie Atherton) know that, with their wedding tomorrow morning, everything will change for them. But will for ever really be for ever? Ten years down the line, an older, wiser and sadder Jack (Grant Neal) and Catherine (Yvette Robinson, terrific) are wondering how they let their marriage slip away as they prepare to rubber stamp its end.
The play slips down as easily as champagne, but two hours in the company of this earnest, navel-gazing quartet, who seem blithely unaware that the search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness, is about 40 minutes too long. Still, Wythe, who surprisingly turns out to be an Englishman masquerading as an American, can certainly write a tune and turn a lyric.
Some of the score is sublime (and sublimely delivered by a terrific band, although the sound is not best balanced for the space), and intriguingly layered and woven together so that voices and characters are in contiguity. Wythe's lyrics demonstrate that he can do wit with panache and doesn't need to overdo the angst. When he finds a subject more interesting than the groom's concern about where to stash his porn collection and rose-tinted marital regret, he should write a real humdinger.
Neat performances all round, and a very cunning design from Chris de Wilde, signpost the future for this brave venue, which is turning itself into a miniature musical powerhouse.
Until 13 November. Box office: 020-7737 7276.
