As we all know, it doesn’t stop at kissing. ‘More? It’s not a telescope’ says he, knackered. A straight virgin, who’s never injected or even borrowed a toothbrush finds himself HIV+ after his first shag (its only his girlfriend’s second). So, beware of puppy-love because kissing will lead to AIDS as surely as ‘baccy leads to heroin addiction. Well, bollocks, frankly.
Playwright Dale Smith is only nineteen yet manages to patronise kids younger and less classy than he is. He’s a bit of a new lad (aka an old chauvinist): ‘Margarine legs? Easily spread’; girls are a throwback: ‘birds’ and boys: ‘mate’. Smith doesn’t have the precision of, say Iain Heggie whose Glasgow shorts “The Sex Comedies” distil inarticulate language into communicative patterns (‘Can you fuck - the fuck you can - the fuck it is - is it fuck’) Smith overstretches in two hours what boils down to a couple of minutes character sketches.
The (improvised?) dialogue lacks spontaneity: ‘Are you stoopid or sumfink?’ and it doesn’t posses the the ring of truth of, say, ‘Eastenders’ Sandip moaning to Gi’a: ‘Wot yor marf do for exercise before it had me to slag off, eh?’. Danny Newman and Emma Owen-Smith invest their performances as bird and a mate apiece with some emotion, but not much depth. You pity them enduring a snogathon without the chance of a dramatic orgasm.
Simon Reade