Review: DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA, Theatre N16, April 4 2016

Danny, knuckles bashed about from fighting, drinks alone in a bar, raging against everything and everyone. Roberta is flicking pretzels into a dish to pass the time, and figures, with nothing to lose, that she might have a bit of fun with Danny, whose violence and rages do not bother her - indeed, they act as a bit of a turn-on.

But Roberta just wants to be loved and so, eventually, does Danny, but how they navigate their way to expressing as universal and simple a need as that in the big, alienating, lonely city of New York, is the subject of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (continuing at Theatre N16 until 14 April).

This early play by multi-award-winning writer John Patrick Shanley is an intense study of the difficulty of forming attachments (one might add in the pre-internet dating age, as that's been a bit of a gamechanger). Gareth O'Connor convinces in his transformation from closed-down sullen ball of anger to almost a romantic lead, as Danny first questions why he and Roberta can't have what others have (a white wedding) and then suddenly sees their path towards it. Megan Lloyd-Jones gives us a Roberta emerging from a delayed adolescence just as her son is about to enter his (he being the reason she missed it first time round). She looks young and relatively undamaged for her character's age and backstory, but Lloyd-Jones nails the accent, a critical component of a play that is very much of NYC.

It's intense stuff, delivered all-through in about 80 minutes with the supplementary soundtrack of Balham's cars and trains passing close by lending another level of authenticity to the production. It's not exactly a feelgood piece, but it's no misery trip either, and to those of us past such negotiations, a handy reminder of how hard it is to connect in the city, even when there are ten million or more souls just outside the window.

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