REVIEW: THE WORK WE DO at White Bear Theatre 4 – 8 June 2024

‘It’s all very well done, with plenty of feisty conflict, believable characters, and gentle comedy arising from the situation …’ ★★★

The show is set in a recording studio where two actors meet for the first time to record an erotic audio story. Annie (Laura Shipler Chico) is a freelance journalist for travel magazines and Erotica. She is also a voice actor mostly for advertising and audiobooks.  On the other hand, we learn that Harry (Will Tusker) has worked in video games and is a sex worker. The latter comes as quite a shock for Annie and also piques a certain distaste. The show focuses on their differences and much comedy ensues from Annie being made to feel deeply uncomfortable in her prejudices.

It allows the scriptwriter an opportunity to champion female sexual pleasure. We are reminded of the shame that women can experience via Annie’s prickly response, some women still feel uneasy about it, even today, when the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy is not necessarily a concern of sexual congress. 

Harry talks about the paying costumer embracing anonymity, something that helps them to enjoy abandoning themselves to the experience.   “A job is something that allows you to do the thing you love” he says, and adds that “pleasure should be up there with food.”

“Men tend to want robots and women want a soul” he posits.   Following his revelations, the work that the pair are currently doing must continue, as the studio is being paid for by the hour. There is further comedy as now the moans and dirty talk, the inuendoes and fulfilments being recorded become distorted by the antagonisms of their conversation. 

It’s all very well done, with plenty of feisty conflict, believable characters, and gentle comedy arising from the situation. It also gets its point across,  about female pleasure, really clearly. However, it just feels a little flat as though the stakes aren’t high enough, or that the comedy doesn’t strike to the heart of things. The two voice actors are perhaps not given enough depth, so we don’t get a more complicated scenario, which could result in more ironic or caustic comments.  It all rather glances across the top, so wouldn’t it be better if they already knew each other and the the revelations were far more hard hitting with far more subtext?   We never see the producer, but we hear her, via voiceover.  This is presented realistically, but perhaps misses an opportunity for further comedy. 

Actors Laura Shipler Chico and Will Tusker have ability in oodles, but they need more to play with, so the script has a little way to go to deliver all the goodies that it is capable of bringing.

WRITER & DIRECTOR Cerys Jones

CAST Laura Shipler Chico and Will Tusker

 LIGHTING AND SOUND TECHNICIAN Ryan Kingsbury