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Stuck by Scott Mullen Bare Essentials

Seven Dials Club

Saturday 28th January

New Writing shows always tell you a lot more about the producers than the writers, and this one is no exception. The star here is producer Liam Fleming, whose jolly, bouncy, avuncular 'bear-ish' persona dominated events: he is the classic salesman, urging you to close the deal and tweet your approval of his wares at every step of the way - he even runs a 'competition' during the show to find the best promoter of his goods. His outfit, 'Encompass Productions', which he shares with the less visible Jonathan Woodhouse and Rachel Owens, must be doing magnificently well because they hired the bar and performance space of Covent Garden's coolly hip Seven Dials Club for this showcase of the work of six authors.

Scott Mullen was on first at he runs a nice line in Capra-esque comedy, with sharp dialogue and bold and bright characterisation: James Unsworth and Liz McMullen were the odd couple brought fleetingly together in this mini-rom-com, efficiently directed by Charlotte Donachie. The central idea in 'Stuck' - someone making a lucrative career out of being serially bumped from overbooked flights and compensated in a way that most air travellers merely dream of - is worth exploring a lot further, and in much more comedic detail. It would make a perfect movie.

Tom Coash's 'Raghead' wore its obvious polemic on its head and not on its sleeve, but it might as well have done. Charlotte Peak and Eddie Usher did everything possible to make the characters seem believable, and director Alice Kornitzer tried to divert our attention from the disconcerting twists in the plausibility of the text, but this was like listening to someone telling a story he felt he had to tell, rather than telling a story he felt.

Lucy Kaufman's 'Radio Foreplay' was a sketch rather than a play, and a smoothly executed one, deftly performed by Alexander Pankhurst and directed brilliantly by our Liam. A radio producer labours at home on his mobile, doing deals with a writer and his superior. Strongly reminiscent of 1970s BBC humour (it is the kind of thing that Ronnie Barker would have written), it came across as somewhat over-familiar, rather than 'new': nevertheless, as a skit on trying to make a Radio 4 drama about Tourette's with the minimum of swearing in it, it was efficiently and humorously done.

Blue Tent by Gino Dilorio

After the tweet-break, the second round brought us Gino Gilorio's 'Blue Tent' with Ian Macnaughton and Mark Keegan doing a kind of Lennie'n'George act, with a frying pan standing in for the rabbits. Well, this was more Steinbeck run through a grinder by Sam Shepherd. Perhaps Gilorio has lived this world, but on the evidence of this scene I really, really doubt it. Director Samuel Dunstan made much of the Audrey II-like possibilities of the tent itself, which gave the event a kind of pleasingly Beckettian oomph.

'Almost Connect' by Thomas Pierce was a fervid belt through highly strung post-millennial neuroses with black leotard-clad Left Bank 'internal voices' standing to one side all brought to life by Robbie Curran, Jennie Delaney, Josh Morter and Sian Eleanor Green. The medium was very much 'the message' here, and it was energetically animated by director Lucy Foster (like Dunstan, one of the company's Associate Producers).

And finally... 'Two's Tales' was a disaster movie by J P Cooper, directed with the straightest of possible faces by another Associate Producer, Katie Turner. Louise Beresford and Duncan Mason took us into oblivion with suitably sensitive smiles on their faces, bravely striding forth into the scientifically never quite explained denouement. And yet... and yet... it became more interesting when they started playing other characters and swapping gender roles. That aspect of the play was terrific, and - frankly - just didn't need a kind of 'The Nine Billion Names of God' type ending.

So, which of these would YOU vote - or tweet - to turn into a real play. And - more importantly - why? Don't forget to tweet your answers to, @EncompassOnline, #BareEssentialsLDN.

Please note that we do not award star ratings to works in development such as Bare Essentials. Our aim is to encourage writers and help develop projects.

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