REVIEW|The Last Five Years Stream

After our last chat, apologies for the delay in new content, when we talked about how to survive without live theatre during the lockdown a few things have been added to the mix. One of those things being the addition of ticketed live streams of shows and performances, which almost makes it feel like you are sitting in a theatre watching a show you've been excited about.

One of those streams is The Last Five Years which was produced by Lambert Jackson Productions alongside The Other Palace and staring Lauren Samuels and Danny Becker.

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The Last Five Years is a show that was aware for many years but I'd never got the chance to see live so when this performance started selling tickets I knew that I had to buy a ticket. The show itself is a look at a New York couple's relationship over a 5 year time period, watching them fall in and out of love during that time. The interesting part of this show is unconventional with its story telling as the character of Jamie (played in this performance by the delightful Danny Becker) telling his story chronologically from the couple's first encounter to the end of the relationship whereas the character of Cathy (played in this performance by the wonderful Lauren Samuels) tells the story in reverse from the tumultuous and turbulent end of the relationship to the start. This means that the two characters don't directly act against each other except one song in the middle when the two timelines cross over.

This story telling idea works well in Lockdown as that meant the two actors could individually film their performances separately and edited together afterwards. The perfomance itself took the look of a Zoom call, which I thought worked well as it has become part of day to day life in recent times. It was wonderfully edited and I have to applaud all the work done behind the scenes for its overall look and production.

Like I said the cast was Lauren Samuels as Cathy and Danny Becker as Jamie. Both performances were top notch, bringing the songs I have listened to on repeat through headphones for years to life in front of my very eyes on my computer screen and hats off to both actors for portraying all the emotions and feelings through a screen, still able to grasp at the watcher's heartstrings and make them feel for the pair through some of the most heartbreaking times in a relationship.

At the time of writing, the show has one more performance on 27th June 2020 at 7.30pm GMT and it's definitely worth a watch. A ticket costs £8 and the performance is 90 minutes with no interval. 

I'm so pleased that I finally got to see a show I have loved for years "in real life" and hope there will be more opportunities to see shows like this again whilst we wait as patiently as we can for the chance to sit in an actual theatre again.

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Rating (out of 5)

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