One Day When We Were Young, Shoreditch Town Hall

There is a lot that is charming about Paines Plough's new production, One Day When We Were Young, but little that is convincing. The story comprises three moodily elegant scenes across sixty years, starting in a Bath hotel room.

Brief encounter

It is 1942: the eve of Leonard's dispatch to war. In a single bed, as bombs fall nearby, he and Violet lose their virginities to each other. Twenty five years later, they meet again, in the electrical department of a large store. And then again in 2002. At this point Leonard has become a doddery old man in too-short trousers and oversized trainers. Violet shows the signs of an easy life, still lithe in her dotage. It is at this point - according to the programme notes - that the 'the couple must decide what was lost and what was gained.' This isn't strictly true because nothing has been gained, and it's hard to measure loss when their coupling didn't make sense in the first place.

Leonard - a beautiful performance by Andrew Sheridan - is a diffident working class boy with a future in butchery. How did he snare Violet - the lovely Maia Alexander - who is a middle class, piano-playing, German speaking, book buying, high flier?  Did he slip her some chops under the counter one Saturday? It's the sort of what-if that inspires the X Factor's Lucy Spraggan to write jolly Saturday night ditties, but it lacks the necessary substance for a play, even a short one.

In conclusion: One Day When We Were Young feels like a first draft. It's not fully formed. The subject matter ensures the audience remains engaged, but what it fails to provide is either emotional or intellectual ballast.

References
Paines Plough, tickets and information.