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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Lifestyle
Nick Curtis

Blackout Songs at Hampstead Theatre review: this exploration of alcoholism is a frustrating mixed bag

Joe White Alex Austin Rebecca Humphries Robert Day

Rebecca Humphries and Alex Austin in Blackout Songs

(Picture: Robert Day)

Booze is the fuel that propels and consumes a toxic romance in Joe White’s frustrating mixed bag of a play. Confusion and repetition are built into the script: the two characters are alcoholics who frequently misremember or reinvent their shared history.

Rebecca Humphries and Alex Austin flit impressively between being the needy and the dominant party, drunk or sober, as the characters’ stories slip, slide and spill. Guy Jones’s stark production is staged under striplights on a minimal set.

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