The couple at the centre of Blackout Songs looks like the kind you might see, sloshed and boisterous, on a night bus. She is flamboyant in a fur-lined coat and leather boots; he is an impoverished art student with dyed blond hair. Listening to their odd, associative conversation while they go out on the razzle is at first like eavesdropping on a drunken conversation – not half as interesting when you’re sober.
But as we tune into their flirtations and role plays, we hear tenderness, intensity and undercurrents of pain. This is a drama about love while in the grip of addiction and this pair (we never learn their names) grow on us, and grow in depth too. They meet at an AA meeting and become co-dependent – in their excessive drinking, which brings hectic adventures, and in their drying out.
