Theatre review: Pops, Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh
Pops, Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh * * *
He likes, oddly, to watch Masterchef while also listening to old-fashioned rock and roll on his ancient cassette player. His daughter arrives, in desperate need of a few months’ shelter at home after a crisis in her own life. He’s expecting her, but barely lifts his eyes from the screen, and turns the music up.
This is the opening of Charlotte Josephine’s latest play Pops, performed with impressive emotional courage and intensity by Nigel Barrett and Sophie Melville, in the tiny basement theatre at Assembly Roxy. In the end, the play never quite focuses down on the subject of addiction, which is supposed to be at its core. The father’s alcoholism is exposed, the daughter’s problems only hinted at; and the play rises to a climax of explosive dance and hysteria that hardly seems earned.
Until 25 August