The Work We Do. White Bear Theatre.

Cerys Jones agreeable comedy drama The Work We Do sees an odd-couple of voice actors meet for the first time at a studio to record an erotic audio book.  The work in question, a kind of sub-standard Fifty Shades Of Grey about a highly sexed travel writer with a penchant for well-endowed barmen, could beat-off all-comers at the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award. “It’s a big step up from Bridgerton” we hear at one point, only it really, really is not.

Doing her best performing as the book’s protagonist is Annie (Laura Shipler Chico is gloriously acidic), a frumpy fifty-something hack thespian on her eighteen erotic recording. Sipping on honey and lemon to ensure a sufficiently husky tone, Annie’s main aim is to get the work done in the shortest possible time without actually having to think about the sex she is so volubly enacting.

Alongside Annie is Harry (Will Tusker enjoys himself enormously), a louche mid-twenties newbie who works part-time on a perfume counter and has a sideline as a high-class escort for businesswomen. The lad sees himself as a craftsman who wants to “deliver on the brief… find the hidden spaces” and “sell the emotion” in the story. Much to Annie’s chagrin, born-improviser Harry, who chews on sweets to avoid “coughing up phlegm mid-orgasm”, is quite willing to go way off-script to get the results he wants. Add into the mix unseen studio producer May whose determination to record just the right note of orgasmic frenzy requires multiple retakes; “just the high moan again” she demands fastidiously at one point. What could possibly go wrong? Anticipate twists, turns, comedy and conflict amidst the extended rumpy-pumpy.

One supposes the character names in The Work We Do are a deliberate reference to late 80s Hollywood blockbuster When Harry Met Sally. Indeed, at one level Jones’ immensely agreeable concoction is really an inverted 65-minute riff on that movie’s most famous scene – the one in which Sally fakes orgasm in front of a packed restaurant. But along the way the piece has something of note to say about the extent to which society depersonalises and commodifies sexual intimacy. “You think your role is to deliver orgasms to the masses like some kind of sexual saint” Annie declares of Harry’s escorting work. But is her fulsome engagement in audio porn really that different? Shipler Chico and Tusker have immense chemistry as the incompatible duo, whose mutual loathing inspires some impressively angry ersatz sex.

Writer and Director:  Cerys Jones