HE'S SPARTACVS presents... Kaz Luckins and Phil Rea in a comedy by David Wake

"Outside every thin woman, there’s a fat man trying to get in."

Doug needs to lose weight, Cindy needs to gain weight and they both want perfect partners, i.e. not each other.  But Cindy has a plan… unfortunately for Doug, it’s not a piece of cake.

A comedy about dating, dieting and the terrible choice between chocolate and sex.

He's Spartacus toured Kidderminster, Bradford, Halesowen, Birmingham and Worcester between Fri 21^st September to Saturday 20^th October.

Review

A play about body image and its effect on psychology, from the man who brought you 'Inveigle' at Contemplation.  "Meeting Disorder" is a non SF piece, but is well worth going outside genres  for.  Cindy (Kaz Luckins) and Doug (Phil Rea) keep bumping into each other, in the doctors, the supermarket and a group of overeaters and specially sized.

Fat, overly accommodating Doug desperately needs to lose 56 lbs, difficult 'skinny bint' Cindy even more desperately needs to gain 56 lbs.  Each covet the 'perfect people', and are in their own ways lonely, but decide to move in together to swap meals, with the added incentive that when they are 'perfect', sex will be on the menu.

The Studio at the Priestly in Bradford is a snug little theatre accommodating about 20 people, with nothing to separate the cast from the audience, which allowed David Wake on several occasions to make the audience part of the play, expanding it from the next little two-hander that it is.  The back row of the seating became the back row of a cinema where Doug and Cindy have an awkward first date, showering everyone with popcorn, and later on the front row became the participants in Cindy's ill-fated attempt at speed dating.

The premise works very well as a comedy but with strong dramatic elements, as despite Cindy's initial distaste for Doug and rejection of her anorexia, her eating habits do change and with it she loses some of the contrariness that makes her so difficult for everyone to get along with.  Doug on the other hand has no self-image problem, but in losing weight gains a new resolution that he was previously lacking coming out of life's background into its foreground.  Doug and Cindy end up in love with the other person, and not their image.

the central performance of Kaz and Phil as Cindy and Doug are perfect, physical casting complemented by the skills of both actors, excellent in their roles and for me the absolute conviction of Kaz in the speed dating scene face to face with myself as the prospective date was terrifying, exactly the effect intended.  Than youk David, for seating me there, you have put me off speed-dating for life.

Peter Harrow, LX PR-1