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Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

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The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

The Corsican Job: Sublime @Tristanbates

With Sublime, the premise of a new heist drama and a promise of it being a provocative play is hard to resist. Its short run at the Tristan Bates Theatre has ended but there were some things to admire about the piece by by Sarah Thomas.

The story is that the heistess, Sophie, is back in town. And she's got one week to pull off three jobs to pay back the Corsicans. It's assumed knowledge that you don't want to fuck with the Corsicans. But if you have been to Corsica you probably will understand that immediately.

She enlists her brother Sam to help her. But Sam is trying to lead a straight and boring life with his mousy new girlfriend Clara (Suzy Gill). But there is so much sexual chemistry between the two you begin to wonder what sort of siblings they are.


As Sophie and Sam, Adele Oni and Michael Fatogun  keep your interest aroused in this piece. Their sexy performances and provocative banter make for a sultry evening. It is only diminished by the endless subplots and twists, and a few superfluous characters.

The heists don't happen onstage so we're left to assume they're a piece of cake. Not much of the dialogue centres around the planning of them either. This  seems curious given the characters are supposed to be some great up and coming criminal masterminds.

Directed by Ben SantaMaria (who also had a role in script development), Sublime is is Thomas's first play and the short run will hopefully give the piece more focus. Somewhere amongst all the material there is a 90 minute play there that I would like to see...

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