Rita is mourning the death of her only son in Afghanistan, killed when saving the life of the son of her best friend Maggie. Struggling to cope with the life left to her, she can't help herself from blaming her friend for having a son who's alive when hers has gone.
The drama is played out at Rita's front door, she inside, Maggie on the doorstep. With the latter, despite every effort, unable to bridge the physical or figurative gap between them. The set conveying this has been cleverly constructed and there's some nice offstage work to keep the action flowing.
Excellent performances from the two leads, Leanne Martin as Rita and Jane Hogarth playing Maggie. Possibly better than the script deserves. From the off the efforts being made to emotionally manipulate the audience feel too heavy handed, and there are a lot of obvious cliches along the way. There is only one really good laugh to lighten things a bit. The author's intention may have been for the brief appearances of a third character, an annoying teenager called Molly, to provide some levity, but she just came across as distractingly insensitive.
The play is certainly well intentioned, but too clunky to generate a real sense of involvement. At least the performances do provide a lot to enjoy.
Broken Biscuits is on in The Space on the Mile at 19.20 until the 29th.
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