A slight, improbable comedy about the nature of celebrity and an aimless fantasy for Elvis fanciers. These are the first fruits of Breaking In, a collaboration between the Bush and Channel 4, where the writers have absorbed the worst of both worlds.
Both Samuel Adamson's Drink, Dance, Laugh and Lie, and Mette M Bolstad's This Life and Counting, have the ephemerality of minor TV drama and the self-consciousness of theatre. Decently directed and acted, they are mildly amusing and almost instantly forgettable.
Adamson's is the stronger work, a quirky take on fame and the capacity of celluloid ghosts to come back as kitsch icons. Reade Collins (Paul Hickey), the presenter of a forgotten kids TV show, is rediscovered: first, by the boss (Paola Dionisotti) of a media studies night school, and second by a young gay fan (Lee Ingleby).
Rather than pursue the theme of celebrity reinvention, Adamson inserts a criminal plot twist, which leads the story into wildly unlikely, comic-pornographic territory. Angus Jackson's production is low on power and charisma, but benefits immensely from a fizzingly vivid performance by Ingleby.
Bolstad, meanwhile, plays all her aces (or rather her Kings) in the first scene. She creates an hilarious world where Elvis is a cable TV god, men are pizza-guzzling slobs and women are willing slaves won in card games.
The laughs peter out, though, once it becomes clear that Bolstad has only a few prosaic points to make about conformity. Clive Wood and Tabitha Wady stand out in Sacha Wares's atmospheric production, but the play is suspiciously mindless.
Incidentally, all these two dramas have in common is the belief that TV messes up your life. What will Channel 4 think of that?
Breaking In: Drink, Dance, Laugh And Lie & One Life And Counting
