Two-handers rarely make it to West End stages, and when they do, they often rely on A-Listers who use the buzz of star casting to fill the chasmic space, bereft of bodies. So how does this twee-sounding piece fill the void? With bucket loads of charm, and a straightforward idea that shows hard-hitting can be done simply.
Sam Tutty, who led Dear Evan Hansen in the West End, plays Dougal, an excitable British guy on a pilgrimage to New York to go to his father’s wedding – and meet him for the first time.
En route he meets Robin, played by Dujonna Gift, a sister of the bride, and they get to talking, but his naive optimism grates with her long-in-the-tooth, downbeat energy. But when she needs help carrying the wedding cake through the city, the duo have a chance to find common ground.
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Tutti is capable of engaging the 400-strong audience by simply flashing his warm smile. He splashes energy at almost every breath, crafting out of Jim Barne and Kit Buchan’s script not so much a believable 20-something, but a loveable kid from a Netflix comingof-age dramedy. Gift has the slightly easier job of seeming stroppy and standoffish, but when questions of romance are platformed she captures the maturity and self-questioning energy of a woman in her position.
You’re willing them on, especially through Buchan and Barne’s songs, each a neat little ditty that could easily become an earworm, but the idea of romance never becomes saccharine: the writing wouldn’t disrespect these two relative strangers like that.
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Dougal feels a little off the telly, but their situation doesn’t: these two genuinely care about each other, and put to task with a thousand fun little choreographed bits by director Tim Jackson, who has them buccaneering about the place with that doomed dessert, you get a touching insight into two lives clashing.
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake across New York) plays at the Criterion Theatre until 14 July