Some Girls

This show has now closed, click here for a listing of current and future London shows

Comedy Opened 24 May 2005, Closed 13 August 2005

Gielgud Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue, London

In love, if you wait for second chances, you could be waiting a long time. So wouldn't it just be simpler to schedule all those chances into one quick trip?... Neil LaBute's new comedy Some Girls provides an irreverent stumble into the heart of darkness that is the modern single male. Some Girls stars David Schwimmer in his West End debut along with Catherine Tate, Sara Powell, Lesley Manville and Saffron Burrows and is directed by David Grindley.

"David Grindley's excellently acted production... Schwimmer proves inspired casting" The Daily Telegraph

How do you recognise the love of your life? When you finally decide to settle down, can you be sure you've chosen the right mate? What if there's someone better around the corner, or - even worse - the best has already been and you've let them slip through your fingers? These are just some of the questions raised in Some Girl(s), when a man on the brink of getting married decides to hook up with four of his ex-girlfriends for a reappraisal of himself and his relationships. As the Man visits each Woman in turn, he attempts to make amends for the hurt he's caused in the past, but often his memory of the relationship conflicts with that of his ex. "It's about how two people who are in the same relationship can misinterpret so many events," says the play's director, David Grindley. "He's genuinely surprised by some of the revelations in these encounters."

"David Schwimmer is part of an excellent cast" The Times

David Schwimmer, who plays the Man, sees Some Girls as a contemporary morality play: "One of my favourite lines, in response to a question about morality, is 'Moral? I guess - or ethical maybe, I get those confused.' And today I think we do - there's a huge grey area about morality and ethics and there's some wonderful moral questions in the play. Is it moral for a man to be with someone else just before he gets married? At what point is a kiss, when you know you're about to get married, breaking a contract?"

"Neil LaBute's new comedy... will delight women and make men squirm" The London Evening Standard

Writer Neil LaBute admits the play charts new territory for him - Some Girls is a comparatively gentle ride. "As a writer, there's always a desire to connect with an audience," says LaBute. "There's probably a fair number of people out there who wouldn't believe my making that statement, saying " choose to distance audiences. That's certainly true, but that doesn't mean " don't want to connect with them, too. Anytime someone gets up and leaves the theatre " feel like I've failed. To have them feel affronted is one thing, but to have them come and not be entertained is another you feel bad about taking their money."

David Schwimmer is known best for playing 'Ross Geller' in the hit US television series Friends for which he was nominated for an Emmy. He is an accompished actor having founded the acclaimed Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago for whom he continues to act aswell as direct for and produce.

"Some Girls leaves you wondering if this dramatist is losing his visceral edge. The fault does not, essentially, lie with David Grindley's tightly paced and tense production. Schwimmer's sitcom credentials are at once fitting and unsettling because this is a kind of edgy, dark, Don Giovanni-ish farce... LaBute certainly writes terse, loaded dialogue. His vignettes of Man behaving badly and his probing of emotional scars will make almost everybody, male and female, wince with recognition... The trouble is Some Girls, rather like its male protagonist, falls short of expectations. It's a faintly disappointing tease. All the tension doesn't really lead anywhere and four juxtaposed dialogues don't amount to a great drama." The Independent on Sunday

"Dully staged by David Grindley, this is a showcase for five actors: Saffron Burrows is beguiling, though too weedy for anyone to trust her as the doctor she's meant to be; Catherine Tate is impressive as the bourgeoise dumpee; Lesley Manville fearsome as an avenger; Sara Powell forceful. And as for Schwimmer: well, there's nothing so artificial as exaggerated naturalism: he gives a pantomime of cheery gaucheness that mirrors the choppy character of LaBute's dialogue, and does nothing to suggest a particular person." The Observer

"Some Girls is one of the least abrasive pieces of work LaBute has produced... But LaBute's wit and elegance ensure that he deploys his sex-war cliches with some panache. The dialogue is often funny, particularly good with the jerky rhythms of awkwardness and shame. In these fractured sentences, LaBute highlights the gaps that exist even between those who have been so close, the way in which two sides of the same story can clash so unexpectedly... Some Girls is a brittle, witty and well-acted piece, not an ideal date play, perhaps, but sharply entertaining and elegantly constructed." The Sunday Times

"Known for his needle-sharp cruelty, especially around male-female relationships, here LaBute doesn't offer much more than a tepid tickle-up of modern dating mores... Though each actress does her level best, there can be only occasional flashes of insight given such slight and cliched material. Schwimmer's passive Man - like a cross between Ross from Friends and Tim from The Office - is naturalistic but there's no spark, no genuine character... Though a nice enough way to spend an evening (lovely revolving sets, some good lines), [it] adds up to a whole heap nothing." The Sunday Telegraph