Late night in Barcelona. An American tourist goes home with a handsome Spaniard. What begins as a carefree, one-night stand becomes an invitation to danger, as the personal and political catastrophically intertwine.
By turns funny, sexy and surprising, BARCELONA is a seductive thriller that will keep audiences guessing - exploring the fantasy of who we pretend to be, versus the truth of who we are.
With star turns from Lily Collins (Emily in Paris, To The Bone, Mank) and Álvaro Morte (Money Heist, Wheel of Time, Immaculate), Lynette Linton directs the West End premiere of Bess Wohl’s explosive play - running for 12 weeks only at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre.
__Assisted Performances__
Audio Described – Monday 25th November 8.00pm
Captioned – Monday 2nd December 8.00pm
In Lynette Linton’s production neither the suspense nor the humour hit home, the mix often more awkward than unsettling. The biggest in a handful of plot revelations lacks emotional impact and does not so much shed light on earlier events as render them distractingly implausible. Given the considerable creative talent involved, this is a curiously flat affair, feeling longer than its interval-free 90 minutes, with little sense of these strangers being transformed by a shared experience.
While this run marks Barcelona’s UK premiere, the play had its first outing in 2013 and is set in 2009. Debates about Iraq and terror attacks, while relevant later in the play, feel forced, as do Irene’s repeated discussions around her ancestors’ pioneer history and the huge cultural gulf between Americans and Europeans. Wohl’s play truly sings when she hits us with some big revelations and these two strangers are shown not to be so dissimilar after all — each struggling with their own demons, in need of another to show them the way out of the darkness.
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