27 – 29 January
Fresh !nk Theatre’s Cabin Fever is a jet-age comedy of manners set on a long-haul flight from Heathrow to LA. Before the show begins, kitted out in the guise of flight attendants, writers and performers Aurelia Harris-Johnstone and Beth Miles check tickets in the Alma Tavern bar/departure lounge. Then the audience is ushered upstairs and on board for what quickly becomes a highly entertaining journey. Rather appropriately, everyone is packed in quite tightly, for we are in economy class. There are no business-class frills, so the two actors appear on a bare stage, dressed plainly in unisex fashion and sitting on simple chairs.
Over the course of the next fifty minutes they create a dozen or more different characters, frequently switching from one to another with lightning speed. These rapid shifts could be confusing but for the vivid characterisation with which each individual is portrayed. Much of the comedy lies in the pleasure of recognising each type, from the elderly couple utterly baffled by the inflight entertainment touchscreen to the little girl whose fluffy toy will not prove to be sufficient a distraction to stave off tearful boredom over an eleven-hour flight. We also meet squabbling young siblings, a couple of self(ie)-obsessed models, a brittle senior flight attendant with the interpersonal skills of a great white shark, and a small boy with a tendency to ask very embarrassing questions very loudly.
This fragmentary parade of varied humanity is all good fun, but it would lack dramatic shape were it not for there being four passengers whose interactions develop into a solid narrative arc. This quartet includes high-and-mighty motor-mouthed Rachel, whose cancelled business-class flight has led to her and her lawyer husband being transferred to this flight, sat in separate rows. She finds herself sat next to an old school friend, Alice, to whom she is effortlessly offensive. Meanwhile, her quieter, nicer husband is a few rows back and sat next to Anastasia, a Californian therapist who liberally sprays lavender over herself. She has a very forthright and initially irritating way of interrogating Michael about his innermost feelings. What that interrogation reveals becomes the most dramatically engaging feature of the show.
Cabin Fever is not ground-breaking theatre. The comedy is rooted in warm familiarity and the situations, though heightened for comic effect, are quite conventional. But the writing is pin-sharp, each character is vividly delineated with great skill, and the show has a pacy energy. Unlike a real-life long-haul flight, it is all over too soon, and when touchdown came I was still wanting more. Cabin Fever is sold out at The Alma, but it returns to the region at the Bath Theatre Royal April 14th and 15th and at The Theatre Shop, Clevedon, April 16th. Catch a flight if you can!
★★★★☆ Mike Whitton, 28 January, 2025
