Leah has a list of forty things she wants to do before she her fortieth birthday, and she's recently split from her boyfriend, so during a drunken night out with friends, she convinces them to form a punk band inspired by Alan Partridge's long-suffering assistant Lynn. This is how the Lynn Faces were born, the problem is (with the exception of KS1 level recorder) none of them can play—except the drummer, Joy, whom nobody has met and who hasn't turned up for the show.
Written by the award-winning Laura Horton, Lynn Faces is a quietly affecting comedy which draws more from Steve Coogan's most popular creation than just a love for his PA. The character of Leah is an exquisitely and subtly nuanced depiction of a woman finding herself following an abusive relationship.
Madeleine MacMahon perfectly draws out the complexity of Leah's situation, portraying her fragile resilience and the precariousness of her independence from her ex. Backed up by her closest friends, Shona (Holly Kavanagh), a primary school teacher, and Ali (Peyvand Sadeghian), their efforts to keep Leah (and the gig) on track are doomed from the outset.
Not even the appearance of morose drummer Joy (Laura Horton), who has written some choice lyrics for a simple but to the point song, can save the set.
But this hardly matters; Lynn Faces is not a piece of gig-theatre, it is a tremendously triumphant play about rebuilding a life in tatters. It is about friendship and getting older, it is about following a dream no matter how improbable and it's enormous fun too!