This entertaining debut by Harry Mould alights on a curious historic element. As a part of its dedication to hearken to everybody with out judgment, the Samaritans used to maintain its strains open to what it known as “phone masturbators”. Between 1972 and 1987, any man who known as the service asking for Brenda knew he would discover a lady prepared to listen to out his sexual fantasies.
The coverage raises so many questions – about intercourse, hazard, exploitation, acceptance and what constitutes a cry for assist – all of which Mould weaves right into a sparky two-hander. It’s one which recognises the absurdity of the scenario with out diminishing the function of a life-saving charity.
Designer Natalie Fern brings out the Formica, dungarees and orange ground tiles as two ladies settle in for an evening shift within the early Nineteen Seventies. Anne (Fiona Bruce) is the designated Brenda, a long-serving volunteer who has discovered to tolerate the indecent calls and has even grow to be involved a couple of common known as Daniel. Tonight he has not phoned at his traditional time and he or she is alarmed.
New lady Karen (Charlotte Grayson) calls him a “punctual pervert”. At 18, she is the youngest volunteer within the Samaritans and fizzes with feminist zeal. As she sees it, Anne is “taking part in an lively function within the subjugation of ladies”. She is righteous and fervent, however behind her youthful certainty, she has limitations of her personal – as her rookie dealing with of delicate calls demonstrates.
In Ben Occhipinti’s well-paced manufacturing, Mould judges neither. Fairly, the playwright explores the ladies’s causes for volunteering, their have to discover a place to belong and be needed. The loneliness and isolation of their callers is just not so removed from their very own. For all of the sexual frankness, it’s a candy comedy about acceptance and making all of us really feel human.
