Review: Seven Year Twitch, Orange Tree Theatre

To many of us, there is something intrinsically funny about the idea of twitching, or obsessive bird-watching. This play plays on this and certainly has some funny moments and one extremely funny scene, but there are also darker undercurrent. David Lewis both wrote and directed the play but, as the amusing dialogue between the writer and director in the programme makes clear, he has successfully kept the two roles distinct from each other.

The play looks at two therapists, each counselling one partner of a failing marriage while one of the therapists also goes through a marital crisis. I will not explain further as I don’t want to spoil it. Therapy is perhaps over-used by writers to allow characters to open up their inner feelings – I have never met someone in real life who attends this type of therapy –  but when written and acted this well it works. After laughing during the play, I left the theatre thinking far more about the dark, underlying theme about the impact on the parents of losing a child which slowly emerges. Funny and thought-provokng: what more can you ask from a play?

Advertisement