A Million Miles Under Hampstead Heath at Lion and Unicorn Theatre 21 - 26 April 2025
"Cute, existential Gen-Z romance" ★★★
Maya and James have a potentially romantic start to their relationship. The strangers on a station platform might seem familiar; Brief Encounter by Noel Coward is the 1945 classic, but we are in a different millennium and this love story is distinctly Gen Z in flavour. Exploring the fragility of connection in a city compounded by a quarter-life crisis, what makes it unusual is that our couple meet in the physical world on the Northern Line, not via wrist-aching swipes on a dating app.
Middle class, white, heterosexual, educated professionals, Maya engagingly performed by Anna Hewitt and James wittily inhabited by George Prentice are both making their way in the world. She’s smart, confident, enjoys reading, and lives with her flatmate. He’s awkward and keen to impress. They find themselves at the same station every morning and eventually, he finds the courage to make a comment about her book. He doesn’t read and has never heard of James Baldwin. But with the opportunism one would expect from someone in ‘property’, he sees an In, reads Giovanni’s Room and patiently waits for his moment.
This comes not in the form of a critique of Virginia Wolfe’s Orlando but the shock death of Maya’s mother. As the forlorn daughter attempts to process her grief, loss, and the terrible funeral “in a grotty Swindon pub” James transforms from the cute, mawkish commuter into a dependable shoulder, the charge on a white horse. So deep is Maya’s need to find stability in an upended world, they quickly move in together and this concise 60-minute play covers the life span of their relationship, from the honey glow of early courtship and Hendon co-habitation to the first cold hit of reality.
Direction by Robert Monaghan is fluid and effortlessly melds the forward leaps in time with seamless transitions. The script by Nina Fuentes feels authentic but the wide span of emotional highs and lows comes at the expense of a deeper understanding of the characters whose motives and needs remain obscured. There are numerous segues and suggestions that are not followed up and feel like loose ends. What’s with the sister? Why was James not happy before? Why is Maya so motivated by perfection?
The best romances work because the audience believes two individuals are destined to be two halves of the same whole. This relationship, built on chance, opportunity, and a sham appreciation of literature, means the stakes are lower and there is less investment for the audience who become wary onlookers, not sure if this relationship should or can work.
A Million Miles Under Hampstead Heath shines a light on the lonely, confusing place, twenty-something can be. Between finishing education and settling down, comes soul searching and the painful emotional learning that comes with a first serious relationship.This cute and existential rom com will undoubtedly resonate with the Gen Z demographic.
