Tape at the Trafalgar Studios

When aspiring filmmaker Jon meets up with his best friend from high school, Vince - a volatile drug-dealing dropout, the conversation turns to Amy, Vince's first love, whom they both dated. Vince finally gets Jon to confess a disturbing secret, only then to reveal he has taped the entire conversation and that Amy is about to arrive any minute...

I've been to the Trafalgar Studios before and so knew the theatre would be small. Being at the very back, despite being in Row C, was a bit cosier than I'd anticipated though... I immediately found myself breaking into sweat - the only possible response to the thought of enforced audience participation. Thank spongebob there was none of that... Slightly anxious moment shared with my mum, though, when we both thought for a horrible second that the two male leads might get naked and sexy and stuff within spitting distance (literally). Over the past few weeks there have been far too many instances where I've had to watch graphic sex scenes with the parents - this would have been the limit...

As you'd imagine, the intimate setting meant that everything was heightened; the tension, the awkwardness, the humour (and the potential nakedness) - you just couldn't miss anything. Unless, that is, you're the woman in the front row who fell asleep within five minutes and whose husband desperately tried to prop up her heavily drooping head as inconspicuously as possible whenever the actors looked their way. His beaming smile desperately trying to compensate for the unmistakable zombie next to him. Genuinely true. Genuinely hilarious.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this was going to turn out to be some kind of warped panto from seeing the soap-star-studded cast (wow try saying that quickly over and over...). Ok, so there are only three people in this play and the main two are portrayed by Eastenders actor, Syed Masood and Hollyoaks actor Nick O'Connor. They both do a fantastic job, as does Kate Loustau who plays Amy, each bringing something different to the play. Masood, who takes on 'drug-dealing dropout' Vince, provides the unpredictability and humour, the clever mix leaving you always guessing. O'Connor brings the weight, the serious side, and provides what I can only describe with my limited vocabulary as the play's underlying aggression... if that makes any sense... at all. Amy, who doesn't appear until the final third, then shakes everything up entirely when you thought the situation couldn't get any more f***ed up.

It's only an hour and fifteen minutes long and at £19 a ticket, this is a total winner. If you get a chance to see it, do. Something about the play's intensity, and the way playwright Stephen Belber so successfully intertwines humour with tense drama reminded me of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. What I didn't know was that the play is actually adapted from a film starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, who knew? But I can't imagine it working any better than in this tiny studio so don't miss a chance to see it either here, or at a local theatre on tour.