The domestic arrangement that the middle classes call a “men-age a trois” would be recognised by Sun readers as a simple three-some. In David Spencer’s gruelling new play, Darren, a divorced sixties music fan, moves in with Tina and her disabled teenage son, Ollie. So desperate is she for love that she allows Damen to watch porn movies in the house, dresses up for him and allows him to do anything he likes. But when she brings home his new 17-year-old lover Carol, Tina is punished to the brink.

Spencers writes with a rare ability to explore emotive issues – such as female jealousy, male manipulation and abusive relationships – without pontificating or being politically correct. Like playwright Paul Tucker, he is prepared to leave the cosy suburbs and explore the less previleged side of town: Psychologically convincing, desperately raw and bleakly funny, his play is at first a little cluttered with family detail, but soon emerges as a thumping plece of in-yer-face theatre – strong, violent and emotionally truthful.

After an unforgettably brutal opening with describes the killing of a cow, the play is tautly directed by George Ormond, who is helped by committed performances from Adrian Lochhead, Karen E Jones and Lorraine Hodgson as Darren, Tina and Carol, with Alexander Perkins making his stage debut as Ollie.

Blessed with an exhilarating sixties soundtrack, this powerful production by Critical Mass leaves a indelible impression of the excruciating impression neediness and appalling cruelty of love. It is a smashing show.

Press and Reviews:

• Evening Standard
• The Stage

On Stage:

• Tough Love Series at Southwark Playhouse London
• For Critical Mass

A love triangle that makes you wand to scream

Davis Spencer’s play starts von territory familiar to Royle Family fans and progresses to the ninth circle of relationshop hell. As the play develops, the circle constricts, drawing the audince into a vortex of romantic delusion and the psychological cancer of self-loathing.

The action begins with a documentary voice-over, describing how a cow becomes aware of imminent slaughter by smelling the fear and adrenaline of those preceding it. Throughout this portrayal of a love-triangle in a TV-dominated lounge, that image of a withless animal struggling helplessy towards its own destruction adds to the sense of catastrophical claustrophobia.

Tina has the sex appeal of a tub of lard, but when Darren agrees to set up home with her, a romantic paradise seems to beckon. Simon Sullions’s set evokes a love reach their apogee in a fake tiger-skin bed-heart inset with a cassette recorder to play everything from Frank Sinatra to Dusty Springfield.

Tina has a handicapped son, Ollie, and has been sterilised after delivering her second child still-born. Her problems start anew when Carol, Ollie’s 17-year-old babysitter, catches Darren’s porn-fuelled attentions, and moves into the flat.

Although the echoes of Spencer’s latest work are strongly televisual, both the structure and the lit-fuse tension make it a compellingly theatrical piece. The key factor in transforming Glass Hearts from a stereotypical story about a middle-aged man dumping his lover for a younger, perter model is inescably Karen E Jones’s powerful portrayal of Tina’s fermenting discontent as she demotes hersel to the doormat of all doormats to keep his love.

Director George Ormond has drawn out beautifull understated performances from Adrian Lochead as Darren and Lorraine Hodgson as Carol to complete this strikingly unequilaterial love triangle. There is no backhand to this compliment: it makes you want to run screaming from the theatre.