BWW Reviews: THE SWEETHEARTS, Finborough Theatre, September 30 2015

There's a reason why reality TV talent shows send their wannabees to "Boot Camps" - like young military recruits, they're hothoused to learn discipline, to bond as a team and to grow up in a hurry. Once in the world of showbiz (or combat), there's the thrill of it all, of course, but there's also the slog, the boredom and the constant desire to have a bit of control over one's own choices. The stakes may be different (in Afghanistan, lives rather than livelihoods are on the line), but there are enough conceptual parallels to produce sparks when these two worlds collide.

That's what happens in The Sweethearts (continuing at the Finborough Theatre until 17 October) when the eponymous girl band, pop's latest sensation, fly out to Camp Bastion to mime a few songs and raise morale as British troops prepare to leave Helmand province. After some blokeish banter amongst the squaddies and primadonnaish whinging from the singers, things change when the camp comes under fire and one seemingly innocuous request brings long repressed emotions to the surface.

Writer Sarah Page is well served by a mainly young cast who are uniformly excellent, particularly Sophie Stevens who captures some of Victoria Beckham's hauteur as The Sweethearts' lead singer Coco and Laura Hanna as the only woman amongst the squaddies, negotiating a middle-class female route through working-class male culture. Edward Lewis's sound design is both crucial and impressive in so small a venue, adding much to the claustrophobic atmosphere that builds and builds.

At 90 minutes all-through, the play feels both too long and too short. Though amusing, the play isn't really about the laddish bantz that overstays its welcome a little in the first act and consequently squeezes the exploration of the emotional dynamic between the three singers. That three-way relationship's underlying tensions determine a key moment in the appalling penultimate scene, which I couldn't quite believe in fully on the evidence of the previous hour.

Whether the play's conclusion is morally defensible - especially if, as is surely intended, the previous ten minutes action is read as a symbol of an even more heinous act - is open to question, but that is the playwright's choice as a woman and not for me to challenge nor explain.

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