Sorrell Saxon has a pretty wonderful life: she attends a posh private school and lives in a smart Docklands apartment, this enviable lifestyle made possible by her parents’ lucrative online business. Yes, a pretty wonderful life . . . Read more …
Until, that is, Sorrell’s father walks out, the family business collapses, her mother Lynette has to take a cleaning job and there’s no money to pay the school fees. Then Sorrell is faced with the prospect of bidding her wonderful life farewell and moving to somewhere more affordable. Like Birmingham.
Appalled, Sorrell decides that she has to arrest her family’s downward spiral. Unfortunately, her plan to turn things around involves reinventing herself - online, of course - as a provider of...ahem...“adult services”.
Roping in her gawky best friend, Kelly, to assist, Sorrell prepares to entertain her first client. But dabbling in ‘the oldest profession’ is never straightforward. And Sorrell’s plan falls apart before it even starts. And when the police knock at the door investigating a suspected murder, changing schools is the least of Sorrell’s problems.
The first play in Ayckbourn’s dazzling Damsels In Distress trilogy, GamePlan is a sharp, contemporary black comedy of metropolitan morals and mishaps.
McElhinney is a hoot as Kelly, while Mackay lends Sorrel a bluff vulnerability in a turn of the century tale of redemption coming through flesh and blood reality in the face of first world adversity.
Baron’s productions are, typically of PFT, nicely-crafted and well-acted. However, the plays themselves, despite some undoubted moments of wit, lack the moral weight needed to be the dark, humanistic comedies intended by their author.
Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Pitlochry from Friday May 27, 2016, until Wednesday October 12, 2016. More info: www.pitlochry.org.uk
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