BWW Reviews: THE LOVE PROJECT Crucible Studio, Sheffield 2 June 2014
Every Day theatre company's The Love Project, which has recently completed its tour across the UK, is an hour-long one-act production that explores different attitudes to love. It's a verbatim piece which uses dialogue and body language from interviews with a range of real-life testimonies. The four performers switch between characters of different ages and nationalities throughout and do a great job not only distinguishing between characters (although here Natasha Pring and Michael Cusick have a harder job than Rachel Dale and Toby Manley as some of their characters are quite similar in age).
The stories reminded me of things like Creature Comforts and Gogglebox, where we get snapshots of different people's daily lives interspersed with one another. The characters were mostly well drawn and sympathetic - although I would have sacrificed one or two of them in favour of having a couple of teenagers - given that's such a crucial time of people's romantic and sexual development it seemed strange to have most age groups represented apart from teens.
That quibble aside, the piece, written by Ellie Browning and Amy Michaels, is warm, funny and engaging. The pace moves quickly from one character to another and the performers do a good job at adopting different postures for each to help audiences distinguish between them. It's a sweet and thoughtful piece and one that suggests it's worth keeping an eye on what Every Day productions do next.
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