With fast-paced banter, unpredictable drama, and friendly but fierce competition, Finn Hoegh-Guldberg and Penelope Gordon’s Articulate is a witty and character-driven play, framed around an epic showdown of the beloved game. Through increasingly ruthless matches, secrets are spilled, and friendships are tested. The dramedy translates the chaotic rivalry of an Articulate match into growing rifts between student friend groups, in an immersive fringe debut.
Beginning in medias res, we are thrown into the frantic preparation of an intense board game competition between two teams from a closely intertwined friend group. As the titles of “winner” and “loser” come closer to being decided, so do the fates of their friendships. We are plunged inside the game itself, caught up in unravelling tensions to the point where the audience might as well have been dropped into the friends’ living room. As the actors weave in and out of the audience, the unpredictable rivalry of the game is transferred to the surroundings. In a moment of bemusing chaos, a few of the friends crawl off the stage to avoid the arising conflict.
The characters become easily distinguishable, even within the constraints of a 50-minute run-time. Fans of Friends will find comfort in the familiar trope of six student friends with strong individual quirks, but lines of similarity occasionally become too strong — kooky, ditzy Lilo is very much a “Phoebe”. Angelo Torres particularly won the audience with his performance of wacky class-clown Ben. Gordon’s interpretation of Romi reflected the nuances to her character – we empathise with her, as well as criticise her emotional outburst. The strong team of six’s banter, and their ability to seamlessly riff off of each other, reflects the ins and outs of longstanding friendship, which is surely a testament to their close-knit acting family.
With a witty script, clues, and quiz questions framing the plot, come the consequences of secrets spilled. What for the first half is a humorous homage to the trials and tribulations of student friendship, becomes a raw and honest exploration of disintegrating relationships and miscommunication.
While friendships are tested throughout the game, the ending is somewhat rushed with a hasty promise of future game nights, leaving all loose threads left untied. The relationship of exes Romi and Jules is glossed over; without a mutual understanding, their breakup is more of a plot device to escalate the drama.Despite the match coming to a rushed end, Articulate puts the importance of student friendships at the forefront of its story, in a light-hearted but earnest dive into navigating relationships in your formative years.
Articulate is running at theSpaceUK at Surgeon’s Hall until 9th August at 5:45pm.
Buy tickets here.
Image courtesy of Kerry Steyn, provided to The Student for press