Review: LOAFERS, RADA Studios

Caroline and Edward are two twenty-somethings who do nothing in their lives. They spend their upper-class existence pottering around their flat in their silk dressing gowns, lamenting their boredom until they meet Caroline's brother's fiancée who works for a living.

It might work as a concept, but Loafers falls short in its social appraisal. The dark comedy is a weak critique that's slightly too self-absorbed in style. The couple, Charlotte Edgar and Zak Chan, are deliciously lazy in their image of poshness. They acknowledge their lack of purpose and refusal to work, embracing lethargy and handing out a decadent view on their status as élite.

Charlotte's brother Henry (Sam Woodyatt), a banker, and his working-class fiancée Vic (Beatrice Olivier) seem to try to turn their world upside down but the play never manages to make its point clear and fly off the ground. They circle the dubious relationship between siblings and hint at family drama but only get to addressing their stand towards the end.

Only then, the company introduces a grotesque vein that's bordering the morbid, straying from the initial objective and turning the characters into the blood-thirsty individuals that they should have been from the start. The piece comes together fully twice in its final moments with Chan delivering a distinguished speech on the nature of class and the idea of money that rebukes Vic's tirade about theirs being a wasted way of living.

Loafers is ultimately an unfortunately calibrated production. It hits the nail only as it approaches its conclusion after endless, excruciating beating around the bush that says nothing. This could as well be the goal of the play but, if it is, its script and pace might need to be redefined. Strict beats played through the sound system force the characters to re-do the quick scenes, giving them a chance to change their outcomes.

It's actually quite a clever - even though not entirely original - device that could be used at their advantage instead of its being only a gimmick to make the time loops marginally more interesting. At this stage, the show is too hesitant to have any kind of weight.

Loafers runs at RADA Studios until 18 August as part of Camden Fringe.

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