Es and Flo dance in the kitchen, their knees tucked tightly together, their hands clasped around each other’s backs. They snog passionately and the audience cheer. To see this soft, sexy moment between these two older women feels remarkably rare and somehow affirming; look, this play says, this is the joy you can have. This is what commitment can look like.
Jennifer Lunn’s play knocks at the door of Liz Crowther’s spritely Es and Doreene Blackstock’s protective Flo. The pair have stood side by side for 40 years, from the community chaos of Greenham Common to the happy haven of the home they’ve shared and shaped together (delicately designed by Libby Watson). But as Es starts showing symptoms of dementia, everything they’ve built together begins to unravel. Having hidden their relationship from her family and never officially married, everything is in Es’s name; Flo could be swept aside with no control over her partner’s future care.
