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Party time with, arm in arm, Christine (Sesley Hope) and her boyfriend Jon (Tom Lewis). Pictures: Ikin Yum The House Party Coventry Belgrade **** As a contemporised reworking of Strindberg’s 1880’s classic Miss Julie by writer Laura Lomas, there’s no barrel of laughs but drama by the bucket. Most of it is directly associated with unstable, unhappy and unlikely heroine Julie (Synnøve Karlsen) where misery and money make uncomfortable bedfellows. As parties go, I’m glad I didn’t get my invitation. Full of noisy, drunken youths, albeit beautifully choreographed with a soundtrack at volume that would make your ears bleed. Julie’s best friend Christine (Sesley Hope) and Christine’s boyfriend Jon (Tom Lewis) are beginning a doomed relationship against a backdrop where Julie’s demands will ruin, potentially for ever, their future. Christine, who is clever, black and poor, has an interview at Cambridge and the deadline is approaching. Over the Ideal Home grey and granite contemporary kitchen that makes up the bulk of the set is a huge digital clock that follows the end of her dream. Jon is ready to take her but is waylaid by Julie, given drink, seduced and insulted by turns. It is Julie’s 18th birthday party and she has been dumped by boyfriend by text. Her mother is dead and absent father is dating a woman barely older than Julie herself.
Tom Lewis as Jon and Synnøve Karlsen as Julie Diana, Julie’s beloved French Bulldog is newly impregnated by a mongrel, and poorly after she gave it the ‘morning after pill’. Christine spends party night trying to help it. Jon, also with dreams to escape his poverty, has a good handle on Julie’s antics as the son of the household’s cleaning lady. He thinks that she ‘weaponises her pain’ making her friends see her as the focus of all their attention. Time passing and cultural change are important. Do Julie’s dramas grow from insecurity, will I ever be loved or the realisation that her privileged position is under threat from her ‘friends’? Christine and Jon are the nouveau riche class that will push Julie’s position into second place and turn the world upside down. Julie’s gargantuan appetite for power and attention makes her an insensitive, unempathetic individual. Christine, by contrast, gives up her Cambridge dream because her mother is unwell and needs her help, not from duty but from love. In effect, the play posits that the rich, insensitive, privileged ruling class had better watch their backs because a meritocracy will remove their power. After 140 years, it’s taking its time. Directed by Holly Race Rougham the party celebrations will go on to 10-05-25. Jane Howard 08-05-25 |
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