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“By following the fortunes of a particular couple from the late 1960s to the present, Bartlett offers an indictment of a generation… exhilaratingly combining the domestic and the epic. His play is rivetingly watchable.” Michael Billington, The Guardian
Are baby boomers to blame for the fact that their children’s generation is debt-ridden and adrift? Love, Love, Love takes on the baby boomer generation as it retires, and finds it full of trouble. Does each generation unwittingly disappoint the next?
It’s 1967. Kenneth and Sandra know the world is changing and they want some of it. Smoking, drinking, affectionate and paranoid, they journey forty years from initial burst to full bloom.
The pair meet, get married, have children, divorce and settle into retirement over the course of the play. We follow their trajectory in three acts that take place in 1967, 1990 and 2011, each capturing a specific moment in family life and British politics.
Their children, on the other hand, bitterly rail against their parents’ irresponsibility and their relaxed, laissez-faire attitude.
An Olivier award winning playwright, Mike Bartlett’s play Love, Love, Love premiered in a touring production in 2010 with a new production by the Royal Court Theatre in 2012 and has had revivals in London and Broadway.
A non-professional production by arrangement with Nick Hern Books
Running Time: 2 hours 20 minutes including 2 x 15 minute intervals.
Age guidance 14+ : This production features strong language, sexual dialogue, and mature themes. Smoking and the simulated taking of marijuana features in this performance.
Director's Notes
Reading scripts is a joy and knowing that no matter what I select the team at the Loft will make it possible is incredibly exciting – but it also makes the choice more difficult just because anything is possible!
Love, Love, Love by Mike Bartlett jumped out at me for its complicated characters, contemporary issues and the interesting format of intense snapshots of a family at twenty year intervals, with the actors ageing from teenagers to adults. It swings from deeply thought-provoking to very funny, with some cringe-making comments by the Mother from Hell via numerous bottles of wine.
Mike Bartlett has won many awards for his plays including Love, Love, Love and King Charles III but he’s probably best known for the TV series Dr. Foster, which is due to return later this year. Initially he didn’t like theatre and thought plays were boring, but then he saw Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and F***ing and Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls and realised the power of contemporary theatre.
In Love, Love, Love he looks at life from two opposing points of view, following two idealistic students revelling in the Swinging Sixties through a frazzled marriage, to hedonistic retired boomers. He contrasts their choices and lifestyles with their children who are struggling with their emotions and their finances. Who had it best? Sandra and Ken who sacrificed their dreams, or Henry, the big brother with a solid work ethic or their children, Rose and Jamie, who were encouraged to do exactly what they wanted?
The story is told through the lens of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, mixed with booze, fags, lots of money, no money, fun and desolation. These parents and their children could come from different planets – they speak the same language, but can’t understand each other.
Through rehearsals the actors have explored their own experiences and views to bring depth and insight, not only to their characters, but also to the situations they find themselves in. Along with lots of laughter they have created something more powerful and complex than ever I could have hoped for.
Thank you to the actors, my stage manager, the production team and all the volunteers who give up their time so willingly to make our vision work. I hope the audience loves Love, Love, Love as much as we do.
LYNDA LEWIS
DIRECTOR, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
REVIEWS
Reviews
“so vividly portrayed, so utterly believable, so genuine in its conviction that every second counts.” – Nick Le Mesurier: Warwickshire World Read Full Review
“Great acting by all the cast, an excellent script with lots of cringy-funny moments.” – Ann Evans: elementarywhatson.com Read Full Review
“This is far from a fairytale, and yet, what it reveals is succinct and honest.” – Georgina Monk: eCulture’s Coffee Read Full Review
Mike Bartlett’s play here directed by Lynda Lewis examines what happens to Kenneth and Sandra in 1967, 1990 and 2011.
Considering that the playwright set the first act 13 years before he was born the writing, Lewis’ direction and Amy Carroll’s set design struck me (and probably others who were at university in 1967) as remarkably resonant and indeed nostalgic.
The clutter in the stage left flat, the residual guilt at the mess and the desire to clear up before a visitor’s arrival, the cluttered remains of food and alcohol all brought back memories for me, as did the rather desperate desire of the characters to be different ent, daring and radical.
Chris Gilbey-Smith and Zoe Mortimer are splendid in their flaunting of convention as Kenneth responds eagerly to the flirtatiousness of Sandra who is supposed to be coming to see Kenneth’s much more conservatives brother and flat sharer Michael Barker’s Henry. This Kenneth is a splendidly convincing proto hippy and Sandra an equally convincing high-as-a-kite tart.
The second act sees the couple in a ‘comfortable suburban terrace house’, now with two children, the charmingly compliant son Jamie (Julien Rosa) and the bolshie, grumpy daughter Rose (Molly Dibb), all presented on the stage right half of the stage. The inevitable looming divorce rears its head and the children are drawn completely into it. We see that Sandra is still headstrong but that Kenneth has turned into his more conventional brother.
The third act witnesses the set take up the whole stage as it includes Kenneth, divorced but visiting Sandra, Jamie and Rose. Jamie’s speech impediment (subtly suggested in Act 2) becomes full blown mental illness as he is looked after by his father and Rose is the same demanding and dissatisfied adult. We learn that both Kenneth and Sandra have had other failing relationships and that Rose has broken up with her partner Andy. Rather disappointingly we learn little more of Jamie who figures less in the Act than the other three.
This is an extremely well-presented play. It is very well acted and Zoe Mortimer is outstanding as Sandra. Set, sound, costumes and direction are all top notch. Pleasingly when I went there was a very good audience.
I enjoyed the performance and staging rather more than the play itself. It doesn’t quite manage to position itself in the conservative-liberal axis and for me there wasn’t quite enough about why they all behaved as they did. However, it is a clear and splendid dramatic enactment of Larkin’s famous poetic line, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad.”
– Peter Buckroyd: Stratford Herald
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