Review: HERDING CATS, Soho Theatre

Things are different. There's a tiny bit of faff getting through the door (when has that ever been easy at a theatre?) but a couple of cameras in the front rows speak more to a future in which live theatre will be mediated not just within the physical space but, as is the case for this production, streamed to a screen near you. Distance is simultaneously added and subtracted - welcome to the new, well, the new you know what.

And that (literal) scene-setting works perfectly for Lucinda Coxon's black, bleak comedy, first seen in 2010, in which the contingent and problematic nature of 21st century connections looms large.

Justine shares a flat with Michael (surprisingly large enough to accommodate a kitchen counter that took the contents of a number of shopping bags) and is working long hours for a boss who has not heard of #MeToo. Michael stays at home and makes money from clients on a chatline, whose tastes can be somewhat outré. Saddo is his most regular, an American businessman whose fantasies are indulged and whose credit card is charged.

Have we seen these people before? The thrusting young woman whose talents are unrecognised by a man who is happy to take the credit for her work and would prefer her to tie his toes together than challenge his status? The man whose retreat from real life is so complete that his last remaining links to the outside world are his phone, his laptop and the tales relayed by his flatmate? The businessman whose strait-laced public image hides an addiction to private transgression? I suspect we have.

Sophie Melville garners laughs with Justine's sweary no-filter stories of her office affair, but the poignancy of her predicament is undermined somewhat by its predictability. Jassa Ahluwalia delivers a fine turn on the chatlines, but we never really get to know Michael, nor do we go beyond hints of the psychological toll his work exacts on a personality already inward-facing. Saddo is really just a caricature, albeit one delivered with some aplomb and live from the USA by Greg Germann.

The play feels like a season opener for a box set, contemporary comedy-drama (a No Sex In the City, if you will) with the key characters introduced, their relationships set up and jeopardy about to intervene and send them into the danger. For Justine, Michael and Saddo, the more interesting stuff lies in the future.

Herding Cats is on stage at Soho Theatre until 22 May and on screen at Stellar Tickets.

Photo credit: Danny Kaan.

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