by Rob Young (2011)
Finborough Theatre
Directed by Laura Casey. Designed by Emily Howard. Lighting by Elliot Griggs.
Cast: Erin Richards. Matt Roberts. Dolly Wells.
“Everything they tell you is a lie. Babies aren’t cute, the sixties didn’t swing and there’s no such thing as safe sex. Citizen Kane was not the best movie, so what the stupid ball rolls off the table. Santa Claus is a fat, boozy actor and that cafe that sells an ‘all day’ breakfast? It shuts at 5.30. My point being, they lied. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.”
Rob researched Crush by spending ten years in a catty office, full of growling sexual subtext. The play tells the story of Johnny and his doomed crush on Celia, the office bitch. The trouble is, she’s shagging Nudds, a man whose voice is so smooth, he can wriggle his tongue between two coats of paint. And that is where the story ends. Until… click, click, click… in minces Laura, in killer heels. As Bitch 2.0, Laura makes Celia look like an amateur. What starts out as handbags at dawn, soon descends into a filthy labyrinth where life itself hangs in the balance, culminating in a victorian theatrical spectacle of literally breathtaking proportions. For Crush, think crisp white blouses, an office tango and a flirt to the death.
Playwright Rob Young’s feature film, Miranda, starred John Hurt and Christina Ricci. It won the Audience Award at London’s Raindance Film Festival and sold in twenty two countries. He has since been commissioned to write original screenplays for BBC Films, Filmfour and Working Title, as well as TV scripts for the BBC and Channel 4. Rob’s musical, Ex, premieres on Soho Theatre’s main stage in November 2011. His adaptation of Hemingway’s Pulitzer Prize winning novella, The Old Man and the Sea, won the Award for Artistic Excellence at last year’s Brighton Festival before transferring to a sell-out run at the Arcola Theatre and a five week run at the Riverside Studios in 2011. Rob has previously written three plays for the Finborough Theatre – Tango ’til You’re Sore, Suicide and Manipulation and Surfing. His other theatre includes Obsession (Time Out Critics’ Choice), The Shoe Shop of Desire (BAC and BBC2 documentary) and The Man with the Absurdly Large Penis (The Young Vic). Rob is the co-founder of the art group, The Curious Guide.
