REVIEW | Gate Number 5, Greenwich Theatre

20 Oct

Written by Russell

*Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review

Gate Number 5 is a very real, modern, beautifully told lesbian love story between white and black twenty-something immigrants set in a very trendy part of London.

It’s a one-woman show, backed up with the use of film and other media. Written and performed live in the theatre by Henriette Laursen, as well as being brilliantly supported on film by Princess Donnough.

It could easily be a play on TV or if Netflix got their grubby hands on it, it could be turned into a three-hundred and fifty-eight episode box set, which I would definitely binge watch.

It’s a really sweet but not sickly- at any point- romance. It's funny in a very down to earth, day-to-day sort of humour.

Henriette doesn't go for big out of reach laughs, just a charming comic interaction that grows naturally out of their closeness and intensity. Her brief use of dance and poetry are superb comic moments that really do need to be experienced if you get the chance.

The timeless story of a young couple who love each other.

We breeze through all the different stages of their relationship.

Two people meet on Hinge, they have a few awkward dates, they sleep together on their fourth date, they fall in love, they move in together, they plan to get married, the whole piece is so effortless and all-consuming that everyone in the Greenwich Theatre is enchanted by every moment of this intimate, but never crude, hour long play.

The clever use of the filmed parts of their relationship, projected onto a backdrop of a large screen, while Henriette interacts with them in real time, works perfectly. It feels like you’re actually inside their relationship. You feel the excitement, the disappointments, the frustration and the love grow in front of your eyes, you live the whole thing from start to finish and you could only ever want the best for this happy young couple.

It covers a lot inside the hour. The craziness of all the disastrous Hinge dates, the nearly impossible task of renting somewhere affordable in London, modern day British politics, with the shadowy hands of Brexit and immigration lingering in the background.

Inevitably the relationship and the story head in a different direction than we are all hoping for. The shocking reveal of what really happens in this play and what’s happening by the immigration laws in this country at present will leave you heartbroken, bewildered, stunned and more than a little angry.

A really great piece of theatre, that I didn’t want to finish, and when the surprising and shocking end did come, and the play was over, Henriettes’ decision to not come out for her much deserved applause was all the more powerful because of it.

I can only recommend you try and see wherever it’s next on. Because the writing and the importance of this brutal story, inspired by real events, deserve a much much wider audience.