Finally a lockdown drama that will endure: James Graham’s Bubble reviewed

Theatres can open if they want to. That’s the current position. The only factor keeping a playhouse dark is a lack of guts or imagination on the part of its leadership. A small pub in Vauxhall, The Eagle, is mounting new plays in its garden space to raise everyone’s morale. Punters must wear masks and sit in bubbles. ‘We’re adhering to the government guidelines,’ announced the artistic director before the start, ‘which are changing all the time.’

The show is a feelgood musical about drifters and dreamers in their twenties trying to make it in New York. Waverley wants to be an actress but her plans are blown off course by a tempting job offer from a law firm. What to do? She has a row with her boyfriend, Darren, a struggling playwright, which brings their affair to a close. Darren insists that he hasn’t been dumped. ‘We mutually decided to pursue different opportunities.’

To antagonise Waverley, he boasts about a fictional new romance. This sends her out on a manhunt. In a bar she approaches a handsome stranger, Luke, and asks him to decide which snack — ‘pecans or pretzels’ — he would prefer if they were the only foodstuffs available for the rest of his life. ‘Why do I have to choose only one?’ he says. ‘Good answer,’ nods Waverley, ‘come home with me.’ But Luke happens to be a buddy of Darren’s. This simple triangle drives the drama forward and though it’s hardly an original set-up, the script is witty and the characters are credible and easy to like.

Darren has a gay friend, Lisa, who dubs him ‘the ineffectual heterosexual’. Lisa urges Waverley to move with her to Los Angeles. ‘Not California,’ shudders Waverley, ‘they’ve got earthquakes and mudslides and Ellen DeGeneres.’