Uncivil Partnership is comedy with a satirical edge about love, social stereotypes and lesbian weddings. Marion and Kate are getting married. Marion is an aristocrat, 54th in line to the throne, who comes across to most people who meet her as incredibly snobby and unlikeable. Kate’s parents run a pub. Kate doesn’t have a trust fund and works in telemarketing. Their wedding is being organised with meticulous detail by Marion and promises to be a rigid affair containing classical music, one of Kate’s pet-hates.
When Kate is at her wits’ end, an all-female string quartet hired for the wedding turn up at their Chelsea flat to practise. These four very different and vocal girls are Tilly (Hannah Jones), the eco-warrior, Brianna (Rachel Watson) the wallflower Christian, Venice (Katherine Clarke) the Big Brother wannabe and Niamh (Sanaya Kerawala), the closet lesbian. They air their problems and opinions about life, relationships, love and lesbianism.
Throw in Marion’s errant brother Raif (Jack Plummer) who delights in calling himself “a nasty b******d” and the action descends into farce. Then add a twist of past betrayal and the wedding plans are threatened completely, forcing the couple to reassess their relationship.
The play is entertaining, relevant and funny with many good one-liners that elicit plenty of laughter from the audience. Jones shines as the tofu-munching righteous Tilly and Plummer plays the caddish, scamming Raif with obvious relish. The drama is interspersed with music – beautifully played classical songs by the string quartet and pumping girl power tunes to which the girls dance and beat up Raif.
The young actors give energetic often very physical performances. The play makes a case for the problems of the upper-classes, how being born into money creates a directionless, wayward young man and a woman enslaved to tradition and social etiquette. The other characters are also vehicles for social critique, familiar yet at times a little over the top and clichéd.
Despite this writer Caroline Bird must be commended. She is just 22 years old and a student at St Catherine’s College.
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