Fringe Review: The Last Five Years

The Last Five Years tells the tale of the five year relationship between Cathy and Jamie, with an interesting twist - Cathy's tale goes backwards, whereas Jamie's tale goes forwards. They progress through dating, co-habitating, getting married, and then the breakdown of the marriage. In the show Jamie gets increasingly bitter and ends up leaving Cathy, whereas Cathy starts from her breakdown and goes right through to being hopeful for their future together (which we already know is doomed).

It's a great format, and offers many opportunities for clever staging - the two actors only really share the same "time" right in the middle of the show, when they get married. Well, Jamie gets married, Cathy gets "unmarried".

Unfortunately director Russell Hope has missed quite a few of these opportunities to take the strange format of the show and run with it, so to speak, instead dumbing it down slightly, and the actors end up flip-flopping between their own timeline (backwards and forwards respectively), and the timeline of the other actor onstage, thus going from happy to sad to happy all in the space of three songs, it's a bit perturbing. I would wanted Hope to have embraced the idea of the timelines running in opposite direction and made more of it.

Nadim Naaman's Jamie is superb. He comes out on stage looking like a dweeb and you think "oh god, this is a college production" but then he opens his mouth and the awe sets in; Naaman has an incredible voice, perfectly suited for this role. He's likeable onstage, relaxed, friendly, and even when you want to dislike him you still can't help but feel sorry for him.

Hannah Wilding as Cathy is also a great casting, she plays the part perfectly, switching seamlessly between neurotic wife to swooning fan. Jason Robert Brown's script and score doesn't leave much chance for sympathy for the role of Cathy, yet Wilding draws you into her madness and I think you end up understanding her a little more than you normally can if you just listen to the CD.

However. Wilding's voice is not healthy right now. I saw the show on the night of the 22nd, and a review from an earlier performance agrees with me; her voice is suffering. I couldn't be sure if it's due to over-use, not warming up, or more likely; she has a cold. You can see the poor girl suffering as her voice refuses to behave - at times she hit completely wrong notes but had to stick with them, and other times she was quite flat in her upper register, switching to belting when she probably shouldn't, just to get the note out. I really feel for her, it's a terrible time to have your voice give up on you, but such credit to her - she rallies through and performs admirably.

It's a great script and score, and Naaman & Wilding certainly do credit to it. As I said I wish the director had pushed the split timeline idea a lot more, and I also wish I'd seen it on a night where Wilding's voice was up to scratch. I can hear that underneath the scratchyness and flat notes that she does have a great voice, it's a pity I didn't get to hear it.

The Last Five Years plays at the Pleasance Dome (Potterrow for you locals) until August 27.