If Chekhov were writing today, maybe he would be setting his plays in secondhand cars parked on suburban streets among people frozen by inertia. Certainly, there is a Chekhovian sense of unfulfilled lives in Polko, a narratively satisfying three-hander by sometime Guardian contributor Angus Harrison. What it lacks in big-picture vision it makes up for in crisply drawn character studies.
When twentysomething Emma (Rosie Dwyer) returns home to live with her parents after being made redundant from her job in business-to-business marketing, she renews her schooldays friendship with Joe (Elliot Norman) who, still living with his mum, seems happy bumbling along in his low-pressure hotel job.
