'Speaking In Tongues' at The Duke of York's

On Friday night we went to see 'Speaking In Tongues' at the Duke of York's Theatre that suffers the slight drawback of being on top of a tube line so every now and then the sound of an approaching train enhanced the sonic atmosphere. If I was in charge of the theatre I'd only put on loud plays, comedies and musicals, not plays with quiet dialogue and long silences...

'Speaking In Tongues' is a bit of an oddity, with two couples reflecting each others' lives and later interacting, opening with a scene with the four of them in a hotel bedroom talking about cheating on their partner who is also in the room with the others' partner, two scenes taking place in the same space at the same time. The play then continues with the fall-out from the infidelities, couple splitting and getting back together. The second act focuses on what else is happening around them that was referred to in the first act, a woman going missing, a man accused and another couple having an affair. It's a relatively complex plot but seemed a bit over complex and (ok, I'll say it) pretentious.

Saying the same lines and talking over each other is a nice device for a few minutes but it went on for too long. None of the characters were particularly warm or engaging and it was all a bit "me, me, me" - *I'm* not getting what *I* want out of the relationship, *I* want to have sex with someone else, *I* want more... - and very self-centred. Long monologues with little interaction don't really capture my attention. And then I started wondering 'what happens next?' just as the first half closed but, when the second half started, it was a different scene with different characters so I never did get to find out what happened next. The second half of the play is about the people spoken about in the first half...

On paper it sounds intriguing but it didn't quite work for me.

The cast were nice enough, the only one I'd heard of was John Simm from Dr Who' and 'Life On Mars', so at least I've now see The Master in the flesh and survived his attempt at world domination ... or rather, I survived his mind games to make me think the play was excellent. Then, of course, came the joys of the West End on a Friday night with hoardes of people (young people) strolling around with nowhere in particular to go.