Midsummer (A Play With Songs)

You know when you leave the theatre after seeing a really excellent performance and you can't stop talking about it with your companion, and you want to ring everybody you know and tell them they'd be mad not to go, and you feel completely inspired by what you've just seen? That hardly ever happens to me.

Last night I attended the first night of Midsummer (A Play With Songs) at the Soho Theatre and that changed. It's a collaboration between playwright David Grieg and Gordon McIntyre of Ballboy, which alone should make you want to go, but you still never know how these things are going to be staged and performed. A musical play could so not work, and there's a high risk of cheese here, but try to imagine Midsummer without the music and it would lose a huge chunk of its charm. This isn't a musical, it's a play with songs. Great, sweet, sad gentle songs which form an important part of the story.

Set in Edinburgh and staged in a bedroom, the cast of two narrate, act multiple characters AND perform the songs. No pressure, then. Between them they create scenes outside of the set so convincingly that you forget they are bouncing around a bed and really believe they are racing around the streets in a car, tied up in a bondage club, and bathed in the golden Edinburgh sunset.

The interaction between the two actors had me wondering whether they were a real life couple and if not, why not? The play takes you by surprise, which is also kind of what it is about. How you think you have a type and you think you really shouldn't be with someone, but how you can take yourself by surprise when you give yourself half a chance. Love will break your heart, but none of us can resist letting ourselves fall into it anyway. Awww.

Go see it, let yourself fall in love, then tell all your friends.