By: James Banyard
Would you go on stage with three mates and play punk music badly to confront your demons? Leah would.
Plymouth playwright Laura Horton’s compact play Lynn Faces, fresh from it’s hit Edinburgh Festival run last summer, promises a mix of comedy, farce, and poignancy as it wades knee deep in issues like domestic abuse, the power of friendship, and the healing nature of silliness. The play is part amateur punk gig, part character study, part issue based work – all held together by the brilliant lead performance of actor Madeleine MacMahon.
Leah (MacMahon) is about to turn 40. Instead of a conventional celebration – you know, a birthday party – she’s assembled a makeshift band—her best friend Ali (Peyvand Sadeghian) and two reluctant musicians for a one-off gig in a dingy pub paying homage to the character Lynn from Alan Partridge. Horton’s brilliance in this play is her ability to ask the audience to accept this premise unquestioningly.
Beneath the chaotic energy of songs mining memorable moments from Alan Partridge,(remember the scene where he stole a traffic cone to feel alive? That’s here) an unsettling truth quickly emerges: Leah has been ensnared in an emotionally abusive relationship for most of her thirties, something she struggles to acknowledge. A visit to her GP results not in treatment for depression but a stack of domestic abuse leaflets. She doesn’t understand: “He doesn’t hit me,” she rationalises to the doctor. The show explores the slow realisation of coercion. The loving but claustrophobic relationship with her friend Ali – who by the time of the gig has worn down her patience to a nub – contrasts with the abusively dysfunctional relationship with Pete, a malign offstage presence who repeatedly rings Leah throughout the gig.
At times, Lynn Faces risks feeling like a very niche piece of Alan Partridge fan-fiction. It cleverly mines plenty of unexplored crevices of the Lynn and Alan dynamic. And it’s possible – for a while – to enjoy the play as an homage to Steve Coogan’s comedy character. But the twist is that the show cleverly interrogates the way audiences have laughed at Alan’s treatment of Lynn for 25 years—and asks if we were ever laughing at the right thing. The play’s most striking moment comes in a darkly comedic quiz game that I won’t give too much away: Alan or Pete? As the lines blur between sitcom cruelty and real-life abuse, we begin to have our own parallel realisations like Leah: why did we ever find this funny?
The acting is brilliant. MacMahon is a nervy force of nature, shifting from bravado to vulnerability. Sadeghian, her loving best friend, embodies the exhaustion of trying to save someone who can’t save themselves. while Millie Faraway (Shonagh, percussionist and wide-eyed newcomer) provides comic relief and an outsiders perceptive for those members of the audience not familiar with Alan Partridge, and also surprises us with a late-blooming moment of musical brilliance. Horton herself briefly makes a silent cameo on drums, but obviously her words resonate throughout the production.
Musically, the show leans into punk’s raw energy, though some songs — like the dictaphone number — veer into repetitive territory. As the gig builds to its chaotic finale (before the venue’s real headliners, Big Banana Bingo), the play lands its punch: silliness and solidarity can only be survival tactics, but recognising abuse is the first step to escaping it.
A raucous, thought-provoking show that makes you laugh — until you realise what you’re laughing at.