Review: Teach Me, Hill Street Theatre (Venue 41)

SIMON is 18, Emma is 28; and she never thinks of him as anything more than her friend’s wee brother, until they find themselves in bed together after a drunken night out.

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Emma is in a bad place anyway, caught up in a messy relationship with a married man, and exhausted by the increasingly gruelling round of other people’s hen nights, weddings and christenings; Simon is just inexperienced, and feels he needs to be taught the ways of love, or at least of sex.

And that’s about it, in this lightweight rom-com from the talented Edinburgh group Strange Town, as conventional as it is well-made.

Playwright Alan Gordon clearly has a sharp eye for the ups and downs of modern romance, articulated as much through Facebook pages as through the traditional phone calls and dates, and Amy Drummmond and Andy Peppiette turn in two delightful performances, on a set that consists entirely of one big bed. Of the despair on Amy’s side that might form the real backbeat to this story, though, we see very little; and the rom-com format ensures an ending as reassuring as it is unconvincing.

Until tomorrow. Today 2:30pm.