4.86°C Paul T. Davies reviews So-Fa, So Good at Firstsite.
Brighton and Essex-based Tomfoolery Dance Theatre bring their award-winning (The Betty Maguire Brighton Fringe Bursary) piece to Colchester Fringe.
So-Fa, So Good gives an insight into the life of two young professionals and best friends preparing to move out and part ways. The work delves into the many trials and tribulations faced when living together in a shared flat. The piece has an episodic structure that includes dance, physical theatre, lip sync and audience interaction, with a few cheeky nods to popular culture. Simply staged, it has good clarity as it explores friendship and imminent departure with a particularly effective use of mugs!
The audience is welcomed into the home and gently reminded to wipe their feet before they enter the space. The performers, Freya Brown and Jack Richardson, are warming up, and there is gentle interaction with the audience, with Diana Ross’s “It’s My House” providing a soothing background. At first, there is much tension between them; the dividing up of belongings suggests that this is a couple that is splitting up, but it transpires that these are best friends who have shared a flat for five years.
The episodes that follow reflect the everyday minutiae of living together, the annoyance of eating sweets loudly, of slurping tea to vacuum cleaner levels of noise, of drunken New Year’s Eve, and the first signs of vomit on the windowsill. The pair move easily from dialogue to movement, and there are effective sequences of the pair watching and responding to a series of film genres: Jaws, horror, and a rom-com. They even lip-sync to the famous Friends sequence of trying to move a sofa as they try to move their own sofa. Although their lip-syncing is not totally on point, it does provide a very amusing sequence.
The fact that the couple are best friends provides an effective look at platonic relationships, but the stakes aren’t very high. Despite emotions being shared while watching Bridget Jones’s Diary, there is no “will they won’t they” element to the piece, and it certainly lacks tension. What it does have, however, is bags of charm and is an entertaining show.
