Theatre review: All My Life Long

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Can love last a lifetime? That's the challenge facing Gloria (Heloise Spring) and Padraic (Sky Yang) in this new romantic drama by Luiza Minghella.

C Royale (Venue 68)

***

From teenage fumblings in Padraic’s bedroom to an ongoing “see-you-next-year” tryst well into later life, the couple meet up every 2 March to make love, argue and fight yet continue to remain a “sort-of” couple.

While the performers cope well with the transition to middle age, the physical dance couplings that serve as scene transitions make no concessions to advancing years. Minghella’s script is reminiscent of Pinter’s Betrayal – but in fast-forward, rather than reverse – but the dialogue is occasionally prone to be overly elliptical (“only the lonely and the evil ever go to the beach,” apparently).

However, the performance moves at a rapid pace, packing in around 20 years of heartache, marriages, mortgages and illness into a tight 50 minutes without seeming unduly rushed. So if one line of dialogue clunks, there’ll be another one along very shortly and Spring and Yang do manage to make you care about their – occasionally annoying – characters. It’s an impressively performed production from Sweet Nothings Theatre and ultimately gently affecting.

Until 28 August. Tomorrow 4:55pm.