York Theatre Royal – 26 April 2017. Reviewed by Michelle Richardson
Fresh from its sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe. Ten years, two friends and one fortune teller.
Written, devised and performed by Roxy Dunn and Alys Metcalf, we meet two friends, Libby and Sam, recent graduates, attending a festival where they have their fortunes read. One is told she will be successful in love, life and basically everything, whilst the other will not succeed and die a dramatic death before the age of 30.
We follow them through the years via the simple, yet very effective, prop of a flip chart, denoting the leap forward, or later in the show, the jump back in time. We see their lives unfold and take different paths, exactly how the fortune teller predicted. Would it have been any different if the fortunes had been the other way round and could they turn back time? And yes, we were treated to the Cher song of the same name, before they do turn back time.
In between the passing of the years Dunn and Metcalf frequently step out of character and explain their friendship and creative processes. I suppose you could say a story within a story. This was a new one on me and I must admit that I found it a bit strange a first, it added to the show and laughs.
Dunn has written a short, but decent script for both her and Metcalf and they work well together. They have great chemistry and delivered a good comedic performance. Metcalf showed great physicality in her performance which worked well with Dunn’s somewhat understated, in comparison, performance.
We were a small audience and it was very intimate, which added to the performance and I certainly felt engaged and involved. The staging was very simple with a flipchart, two cool boxes and a couple of cardis, but very effective.
It was 60 minutes of truly unexpected fun and what if?