"Familiar Strangers" by Maddie Craig
NNT Autumn Online Season.
What I love about new writing is that I have no preconceptions about what I am about to see, and this is one piece that really made me sit up. I was not expecting the finale!
"Familiar Strangers" is a fictional online dating site which as Laura, the main character in this piece of writing, describes as "holding auditions for your soul mate".
Match 1 is a brilliant tour de force of comic character writing. He is the archetypal 1980's wine bar loner who is corny, comical - in the eyes of the distant observer - the sort of man who every woman should avoid dating. He tells Laura that she "will never meet anyone like him", and boy is that the truth, but for all the wrong reasons. I can imagine him like a shark, prowling and dressed in tight leather trousers, shirt open to the navel, bleached blond hair, tacky jewellery et al.
Match 2 is slightly better but has a terrible line in pick up banter; he even tells Laura that he won an award for the worst banter! I loved the misunderstanding of Match 2's job title. Even though I did anticipate the "mix up", it still made me smile.
Match 3 would have been the one that I expected Laura to choose. there was a natural connection and at least he showed an interest in Laura and what she was doing, and you could see that Laura also gravitated towards his personality.
If this had been "Blind Date" you just knew that Laura would tell Cilla that she would be choosing contestant number three. Laura and Match 3 chatted about meeting up.
And then came the part that I didn't expect. the part where everything took on a decidedly darker turn.....
Time passed when Laura received a really dark message from her ex, Jasper. Controlling, intense and bordering on the maniacal stalker, he came across as a dangerous and desperate person. He knew exactly what Laura had been doing, and what she had been talking about....but how come he knew so much about what had been going down?
What I had first expected to be a comedy turned out to be a worrying piece of online theatre, highlighting the downfalls of online match-making and online presence. It really did leave a feeling of unease as I did not know what would happen next, and how far Jasper would go. A possible sequel to this, Maddie?
The filming was excellent, as was the sound and captioning. The Autumn Online Season for Nottingham New Theatre has gone from strength to strength, and I for one have rejoiced in the fact that they have found an outlet for their immense talents during lockdown, and produced such a high quality set of work.
Talking of talented people, time for me to shine a spotlight on them.....
Laura - Ace Edwards
Match One -
Nicholas Landon
Match Two - James Fellas-Lauries
Match Three - Max Nichols
Jasper -
Jack Titley
Writer and Director - Maddie Craig
Producer - Ella Seber-Rajan
Assistant Director - Phoebe Marshall
Video Editor - Shayla Dimaano
Creative Assistant - Pip Horn
Sound Designer - Jesse Rough
Captioner -
Zoe Smith
Assistant Video Editor & Graphics Designer -
Skylar Turnbull Hurd
"Familiar Strangers" will be shown on Wednesday 2 December at 7.30pm on the NNT Youtube Channel as part of their Online Season
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