2 Become 1, King’s Head Theatre, review

A significant and fantastic milestone for the King’s Head (if a little depressing it’s taken 47 years), 2 Become 1 marks the first time an entirely female cast, production and creative team have inhabited the space. And inhabit it, they certainly do.

Swipe Right’s 2 Become 1 is shameless, unadulterated fun – pitched astutely at the generation who grew up dancing to Britney and TLC with a hairbrush as their mic. As long as you’re not expecting the profundity of Hedda Gabler or the technical proficiencies of Phantom, there’s no question it’s a show that’ll leave you with a smile on your face – and, very possibly, dancing in the aisles.

The plot’s straightforward enough – a tongue-in-cheek look at being single and (the varying levels of) ‘ready to mingle’, involving four girlfriends at a speed-dating night to help one of the pack through a messy breakup. The story gets pretty much ditched after 30 minutes but no one really minds, as long as the 90’s throwback songs keep coming (and they certainly do). There’s over 30, so I’m told (it was difficult to keep up) with all four performers singing live, taking turns to take centre-stage and provide backing vocals.

Amongst the innuendos and snippets of 90’s nostalgia, there’s also relatively well-realised undertones to something more involved. 2 Become 1 uses parody cleverly, to subvert the idea (prevalent in 90’s pop culture, and, what a surprise, still today) that all women fit into clear-cut, reductive boxes. Of course, you can’t really sum one up as being the ‘posh’ one, the ‘sporty’ one or the ‘feisty’ one – and though the girls represent varying stereotypes, effort is made towards the end to disband them. 90’s song lyrics you’ve been singing along to since the age of 5 also take on new significance; it’s striking, when you listen to them out of the ordinary context, simply how reductive and anti-feminist many are. The girls are certainly aware of this, and sing them with fittingly wry smiles.

Is anything about the show hugely original? Not really – but perhaps that doesn’t matter. The script and jokes are 12A versions of what you’d expect at the RVT Christmas panto – some land brilliantly (particularly when delivered by Jessica Brady – I left wondering whether she’d be capable of making absolutely anything funny) whilst other jokes fall a little bit flat. They get away with it, in fairness, because the next TLC hit is rarely more than 30 seconds away – but nothing, including the pre-recorded male interviews (the sound quality was a little perfect for me to buy they were entirely genuine remarks, it sounded like they’d been sitting in a recording studio?), is particularly revolutionary or illuminating.

The singing’s accomplished, and the accompanying routines accompanying are fun enough. The acting performances are a bit of a mixed bag – the aforementioned Brady is miles ahead of the others, in my opinion, consistently stealing her scenes, managing to present a character who’s both extremely relatable and yet a caricatured stereotype and eliciting the loudest laughs of the night. I’ve not seen quite such an accomplished knack for comic timing for a long time (in a fringe venue, anyway), so real credit to her. Jess (Natasha Granger) isn’t granted the funniest lines of the night, and – as with many central characters – necessarily has to play a slightly bland character for the story to hold together, but Granger performs the role well – with warmth, confidence and a fitting amount of irony.

Eliza Hewitt-Jones demonstrates a solid voice during ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’, but had a slightly irritating tendency, on press night at least, to shout too many of our lines (including ones which didn’t make much sense to). She also needs to watch that her character’s supposed gestus (flicking her hair back) doesn’t become all-consuming; 5 minutes in, I think I’d seen enough hair flicks to last me a lifetime. Kerrie Thomason offers great exaggerated facial expressions and delivers her monologue in the latter half confidently, but has perhaps the least defined character to me and was occasionally prone to swallowing some of the jokes.

2 Become 1 certainly has the potential to be ‘riotous’ – and I can certainly imagine it being so, with a later slot. A 7pm start doesn’t seem like a great decision on the part of the King’s Head programmer to really ensure as lively a crowd as I’m sure the girls have become used to since Edinburgh – but nevertheless, the impressively executed audience interaction sections ensure we feel involved enough. The story’s slight but effective as a device for facilitating 90’s nostalgia, the songs are shamelessly enjoyable and, although the acting is a little inconsistent, the energy of the four performers is infectious and refreshing.