Review - Blink at the Soho Theatre Upstairs

Blink play review by Cassie Laver

Note: The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of RetoxMagazine.com

Harry McEntire and Rosie Wyatt in Blink at the Soho Theatre Upstairs.

Theatre Review: Blink

Blink bills itself as a sweet, funny love story between two quirky young folk living in Leytonstone, East London. What is it really? Sweet - yes, funny - yes, quirky – oh yes. A love story? Well, it depends on your definition of love. Earnest, innocent Jonah (Harry McEntire) insists right from the off that love is whatever you want it to be. Whatever it is, he’s searching for it – from his family, Scrufilitis the flea-bitten fox, his estate agent and finally Sophie, the girl upstairs. Meanwhile, fragile Sophie (Rosie Wyatt) is trying to come to terms with the loss of her beloved father and an unsettling sense that she’s fading into the background.

It all starts very well. This shy, eager pair are onstage as the audience enter, waiting impatiently for us to come in and get seated so they can begin telling us their tale. You can’t help but like them immediately. Hannah Clarke’s simple set design is beautiful yet functional – a shaggy green grassy rug and autumnal backdrop. (Trees and grass – isn’t that just like Vera Vera Vera a few weeks ago? A trend emerges...)

Jonah and Sophie deliver their tale directly to the audience, helping each other along by offering props dug out of cardboard boxes and playing colourful supporting characters. There is charm aplenty in Phil Porter’s script, and a host of funny, tender moments as Jonah and Sophie’s lives draw them closer and closer to one another. The very nature of their tale, though, means that we don’t get to see them interact with one another until a cataclysmic event late in the play.

McEntire and Wyatt’s delivery is warm and engaging. Yet the characters are drawn in a way that is so very quirky and idiosyncratic that the performances run a fine line between being consistent and occasionally being a little one-note. The pace flagged a little as the story went on, not helped by the sweltering temperature of the Soho Theatre Upstairs space on a hot September evening.

If Blink is about love, it’s about the frustration, disappointment and obsession of love. Downer, right? Well, it is a bit – but Blink has such warmth and wit that the sadness creeps up on you by stealth, a little like a mangy old fox…