AIRSICK. To 8 November.

London/Plymouth

AIRSICK
by Emma Frost

Bush Theatre To 8 November 2003 then Drum Theatre, Theatre Royal, Plymouth 13-29 November 2003
Mon-Sat 8pm
Runs 2hr 25min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7610 4224(Bush)
01752 267222(Drum)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 October

Smiles and snarls in beautifully-produced and impressive stage-writing debut.I hesitate to follow the line that took Emma Frost from her title and protagonist's opening (tactfully-staged) vomiting to the prevalence of yellow through the play. It's there on Aussie globetrotter Gabriel's paint-bespattered trousers and finally acquires an awful impact as the play comes to its, apparent, final landing.

Characters in this play live by the seats of their pants a coda shows the carousel's not stopped, with a new person about to be sucked in to the traffic of sex and disease that runs through a surface-comic but deep-boned grim drama. Its focus is on two mid-thirties women - wholesome Lucy, and Scarlet, kitted-out in wit and loathing.

Chalk-stick slim, perpetually hungry despite repeatedly poking a finger into junk-food jars, Scarlet's given several monologues of loathing (including one which will stand as Frost's card in the high-disgust stakes) with stories that skid, veer and tail-off. She has nothing to say, so, eventually, walks out on us after having revealed the inevitable childhood origin of her promiscuity.

Lucy, who cooks meat and two veg, is her wholesome contrast, made movingly vivid by Celia Robertson's. A maker, too reticent to call herself an artist, she turns rubbish into something striking. Emotionally-giving, her high guilt-quotient disadvantages her with men like the US and Australian opportunists who chain-destroy her emotionally and physically.

Though Frost propels her giddy flight image rather forcefully through the script, it comes with developing coherence. She adventurously stuffs in a range of styles, from Scarlet's set-piece stand-up (Susannah Doyle gives them a mannered brilliance) to intercutting monologues ( too many near the end a reminder of Shaw's Too True To Be Good, where it's announced the play's over after act one and the characters will spend two more acts discussing it).

But it holds together remarkably well. Ms Frost has served time with screenplays and others' scripts. Turning to the most exposed, demanding arena, she's provided meaty, appetising drama, including the juicy older part of Lucy's dad, which Peter Jonfield tucks into with treasurable comic glee.

But then, everyone's fine and Mike Bradwell's direction shows his usual pinpoint detail, missing nothing, shading everything. Es Devlin's comfortless, glossy set where tube and airport are transient video images, aptly catches the younger characters' life style.

Lucy: Celia Robertson
Mick: Peter Jonfield
Gabriel: Gideon Turner
Scarlet: Susannah Doyle
Joe: Eric Loren
Woman: Jodie Osterland

Director: Mike Bradwell
Designer/Costume: Es Devlin
Associate designer: Penny Challen
Lighting: Jason Taylor/Matt Kirby
Sound: Nick Manning
Assistant director: Lucy Foster

2003-10-14 16:32:04