Hang Up

Review by Anna Leach for the Camden New Journal

If you want your friends to reveal their darkest secrets, stop talking to them. So finds Gemma, the focal character in the Tower Theatre Company’s production of Anthony Minghella’s Cigarettes & Chocolate, when her vow of silence prompts an unravelling of her close circle of friends’ tightly-wound angst.
Human selfishness is the most powerful emotion exposed in the play; the other characters all believe Gemma’s silence is their fault.
Gemma’s boyfriend Rob is the most vocally self-centred, full of sneer and barely-contained fury in his portrayal by Luke Simonds.
Dappy, pregnant chatterbox Gail, played charmingly by Zoë Thomas-Webb, is consumed by the eternal middle-class dilemma of finding the perfect flat.
Lorna (Louise Bakker) has the most to feel guilty about but expresses genuine regret.
It was a pleasure to see Minghella’s script so believably brought to life by director Rebecca Smith.
His death two years ago cut short a triumphant journey from Hull to Hollywood and was a great loss to drama.
Hang Up, a fifteen minute addition to the bill, is a tense long-distance telephone conversation between two lovers in which much remains unsaid.