Crush Theatre Show Review

It's hardly the strain of the expenditure that is driving Sam and Anna apart in what is, after all, a pretty lucrative arrangement seeing as couples share a room, share bills, eat together and so on.  So what’s the problem, given that the heroes of Crush have been married seven years, have proper jobs, love each other and are looking forward to having children together? The problem is that Sam, devoted husband though he is, wants risks and thrills, not more of the same. If anything marriage appears too comfortable in this play, which suggests a Tory government might be better off spending three quid a week spicing things up for married people. Bojo and Dave could cycle
round Britain handing out sex toys and saving marriages county by county.

What’s notable about this couple though is their age – this is a mid-life crisis play about a pair in their 20s. Sam is only just grown and already he’s lusting after youth and freedom and what Crush gets across is the sense that their weaknesses are being facilitated at every stage by the architecture of modern life. Whether it’s Sam’s facebook affair with a 22 year old, Anna’s obsession with her weight, or the gambling habit that ruins them both, they can now realise their self-destruction with unprecedented ease.

Paul Charlton has written a solid script, with clever observational humour, two well balanced credible characters and an outstanding performance by Claire Dargo as Anna. But it is long, and it felt at points like I was being hosed down with words as we charged through the monologues without action or visuals to break things up. Charlton writes so eloquently about the restlessness and lack of commitment typical of our generation and should've known I'd never make it through 90 minutes of prose without a sly log-in to facebook.