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Shelf Life

"Murphy plays laddish proto-psychopath Terry disturbingly well, dominating every scene he's in"

Jan and Wendy are checkout girls and geezerbirds on the make, sisters secure in their world of pubbing and clubbing - until new security guard Terry appears and puts the ham-fisted moves on Wendy. Wendy thinks he's sweet, but Jan reckons Tel's too slick for his own good. Alan Fentiman's black comedy is extremely well-structured, with excellent foreshadowing and attention to detail, but the characters are uneven.

George Murphy plays laddish proto-psychopath Terry disturbingly well, dominating ever scene he's in and ultimately overshadows the two female leads. Whereas Terry's character changes from cheesy to annoying to outright frightening, Caroline Giles' Wendy never really develops beyond an object for Terry to obtain and Ellen Collier's Jan spends most of her time pouting angrily. This is a shame as the two women work very well together and could have only benefited from the opportunity to add more to their characters. A good solid play nonetheless, with strong performances all round and good laughs.

"George Murphy is brilliantly over the top"

This is a rather odd comedy that, despite having a clear storyline, doesn't seem to have any real point to it that I could discern, except to amuse, and I suppose in the respect it does its job well. The story revolves around sisters Wendy and Jan, who are supermarket checkout girls during the day, and party animals by night. When new instore security man Terry - a horribly sleazy and clearly unbalanced individual - starts dating Wendy, their lives become a little complicated. Jan hates him, and Wendy isn't that keen either, but Terry is convinces that she loves him, and attempts to ingratiate himself at every opportunity.

This three-way relationship gets out of hand when a joke by Jan, designed to put Wendy off him completely shows Terry's true colours. Ellen Collier (familiar as Sandra from The Office) and Caroline Giles are perfectly cast as Jan and Wendy respectively, and George Murphy is brilliantly over the top as the security guard. A couple of hours after the show, I'm still not quite sure what to make of it but it's worth seeing for yourselves.

Coming soon!