‘This next song is called Kiss My Tits.” In Laura Horton’s play, we meet a punk band formed by frontwoman Leah as a tribute to Alan Partridge’s PA Lynn Benfield – but also as a snook cocked at Leah’s 40th birthday and encroaching maturity. Two best friends have been pressganged into taking part, and here we all are at their maiden gig. It unfolds in real-time in front of us, and – even by punk standards – it is not carried off with much aplomb.
There is comedy to be found in three middle-aged women in “snazzy cardigans” delivering an in-yer-face gig without any perceptible musical ability. There’s tragedy too, as the story unfolds of the breakup from her abusive ex that Leah (Madeleine MacMahon) is struggling to get over. Her pals, mouthy Ali (Peyvand Sadeghian) and dizzy Shonagh (Holly Kavanagh), are here sacrificing their dignity to chivvy that process along. But when Pete phones midway through the gig, Leah’s commitment to punk, and to the breakup, wavers.
This all represents a winningly offbeat way to bring Horton’s own experience of coercive relationships (on which the play is based) to the stage. But there are bumps in the road. As they used to say about Les Dawson, you have to be a good musician to make bad music funny, and I’m not sure that’s a trick Lynn Faces pulls off. Often here it’s just bad music. There’s an issue too in Leah’s initial reticence as a frontwoman. In tandem with some simple technical failings (the slideshow of people pulling “Lynn faces” is barely visible), that can leave this dramatisation of a faltering gig feeling faltering itself.
But alongside its spirited performances, there are enough inspired comic touches to ensure you never lose faith in Lynn Faces: Leah’s wrongheaded way of counting down to each song; a track that consists entirely of silently mouthing an expletive. An interactive game of “Pete or Partridge?” adroitly raises the dramatic stakes, while evoking the kind of man whose love(less) language is quoting male comedians. It may come at the cost of the finer dramatic or comedic pleasures, but there is the tang here of real life in all its clumsy lack of musicality.
• At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 26 August
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