Theatre review: Cougar

Rose Lewenstein's strange and sexy Cougar puts a luxury hotel room on the Orange Tree's in-the-round stage, a single set that stands in for dozens of identical rooms around the world. The first one is in London where Leila (Charlotte Randle) has been speaking at a conference. One of her colleagues made an aggressive pass at her in the hotel bar afterwards, and barman John (Mike Noble) came to her defence, hitting him with an ice bucket and losing his job in the process. Leila's taken a room in the hotel and brings John back to it for the night - nothing happens between them but they both want it to, so she proposes a deal: She'll pay for him to come with her on her many international business trips, have sex with her at night and see the world during the day while she's at work. But as soon as they get through customs they're strangers again, and John has to promise not to fall in love.

Non-review: Ain't No Law Against Fish 'n' Chips

NOTE: I'm not going to do a proper review as this is a rehearsed reading, not a full production.

Definitely a themed week for me: Third trip to the Royal Court, which for the third time takes us to Essex (Dagenham this time, we're really getting the tour) and even the second rendition of West Ham anthem "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles." As part of its Young Writers Festival which has already given us Goodbye To All That and covered the building in "100-word plays" the Court is also presenting a handful of rehearsed readings of other plays submitted to the Festival, each getting two performances, and I decided to try and make it to a couple. Rose Lewenstein's Ain't No Law Against Fish 'n' Chips is directed by Richard Twyman, with a cast of Danny Worters, Tobi Bakare and Amelia Lowdell, and concerns two teenage boys who live on the same estate and have been best friends for years. Soon after his first failed job application Pete (Worters) meets some members of the English Defence League, who convince him the reason he missed out on a job was a stealth Muslim invasion, and Pete immediately begins to join them on marches and espouse the EDL's beliefs. The resurgent far right wing was a popular subject for theatre a couple of years ago. Lewenstein's play is a pretty straightforward affair and serves its purpose of showing off her writing ability, especially her good ear for dialogue. With a number of more complex plays on similar themes having been seen in London relatively recently, I'm not sure there's any real market for it beyond this kind of showcase though.

Ain't No Law Against Fish 'n' Chips by Rose Lewenstein is booking until the 10th of March at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.

Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes straight through.