Enough with the foreplay, all ready! Closer is the provocative and award-winning play by Patrick Marber, that charts the intertwined lives, relationships and sexual entanglements of four characters over a four and a half years. TaDaa Productions have produced a slick and safe interpretation of this play that shadows the popular and successful 2004 film version.

Littered with explosive and often highly sexual themes and language, Closer is a harsh look at the contemporary relationship jungle.  The main narrative centres on photographer Anna (Amanda Kingston), struggling writer Dan (David Kambouris), doctor Larry(James Taylor) and stripper Alice (Lily Hall).   The characters are eternally flawed and non-sympathetic. They each want love loyalty and truth, yet fail to be loyal, honest or truthful in any part of there own lives or relationships. Marber’s script elegant and tightly binds these themes, and successfully presents some very explosive language and emotion within a formal and intelligent structure.

Director Beng Oh appropriately sets this clever and ironic comedy in an open and clean gallery space filled with varied photography on the walls. The staging cleverly uses the natural structure of the building, including descending staircases and doors, to great effect, and matches it with simple and slick lighting and costume design.

Closer was impeccably presented and professionally delivered, however the actors failed to connect with the emotional core of Marber’s text.  They lacked the heat and passion required to successfully balance the deleted moral compass of the characters’ inner psyches. The pace needed to climax, so to speak, in certain key scenes, but it struggled with a lack of sexual chemistry between the four actors.

Yet the audience enjoyed the show and connected from the first scene with the witty dialogue and familiar characters. The front of house and overall show design is fluid and interesting and the crew from TaDaa Productions should be congratulated on a well run event.

I am a big fan of the play, so I loved Closer; the notorious internet chat scene was especially a joy to watch. As pace and performance develop over the season, TaDaa Productions should only get better and better.