Lynn Faces at New Diorama Theatre

It’s a curious balancing act for a live show to centre its own contents around a live show in disarray. If a line fails to connect, the benefit of the audience’s doubt is assured by the hurried, anxious apology of the performers onstage. “Is this a paying audience? I’m so sorry!” it’s declared early on, as wannabe punk band/Alan Partridge tribute act Lynn Faces strives and fails to keep up a brave face while stumbling through a threadbare, unrehearsed set. As the stage performers within the stage performance fret, apologise and stall for time while other bandmates make a lengthy exodus from the stage, a fine line is being walked in courting equal audience sympathy and antipathy. In much the same fashion as Lynn Faces’ fictional audience, its real one is tasked with rallying behind the band to prop up what little of frontwoman Leah (Madeleine McMahon)’s self-esteem remains. Lynn Faces steadily becomes more rewarding the more Leah’s lack of filter brings the reality she’s attempting to flee into the spotlight. The audience’s role is not, in fact, to complete Lynn Faces’ sometimes ropey comedic non-sequiturs, but to help usher its spare cast of four characters through a session of pained, protracted group therapy.

For her part, Leah is fast approaching 40, smarting from a break-up with an on-again, off-again boyfriend whose very name inspires a snort of disdain from her loyal, long-suffering friend Ali (Peyvand Sadeghian), and determined to celebrate (or just cope) by checking being the frontman of a band off of her bucket list. The fact of Leah’s barely concealed emotional unravelling is initially played for awkward laughs, but as she, Ali and last-minute band addition Shonagh (Millie Faraway) embrace the cathartic potential of a public reckoning with the trauma instilled by emotional abuse, the more the show around them gains in eloquence and clarity. In perhaps the show’s standout moment, the band – long having forsaken the idea of delivering a traditional set – turn to the audience to determine which of the unhinged, denigrating sentences they read aloud come from Alan Partridge and which come from Leah’s ex. In its blend of seemingly frivolous crowd work and genuine bleakness, the sequence sees the show strike a raw emotional nerve that beforehand it had largely fallen to McMahon’s febrile performance to shoulder alone.

While it can still feel overextended despite running to a modest 70 minutes, at their best, McMahon, writer Laura Horton and director Jessica Daniels are able to capture both the discomfort of witnessing a stranger in public distress and the catharsis of being invited into and sharing the epiphany that lights her path forwards. Though the journey may be uneven, the overarching emotional generosity of Lynn Faces guides it to a satisfying destination.

Overcoming a ropey set-up, Lynn Faces ultimately arrives at a point of catharsis that rings true, making for a show that productively balances froth with a genuinely unsparing look at abuse and its effects.

Thomas Messner
Photos: Dom Moore

Lynn Faces is at New Diorama Theatre from 18^th February until 1^st March 2025. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.