Goggles

It’s like living in a goldfish bowl. It isn’t hard to see the parallels between Josie and Gemma’s lives and those of Sunny and Boo, the fish they buy. And, as friends and increasingly claustrophobic flatmates, they’re struggling to keep their relationship from sinking.

This devised piece by Josie Dale-Jones and Gemma Barnett, in which they play characters with their own names, follows a familiar meta-theatrical path, using a show within a show to explore the strain placed on their friendship by mental health issues. What begins as a tribute to their dead fish quickly breaks the fourth wall.

It begins as a colourfully comic concoction, with Josie and Gemma in swimwear and goggles, pretending to be Sunny and Boo, before it darkens. Josie’s manic enthusiasm is matched by Gemma’s discomfort, as she shrinks from Josie’s hugs and looks caught in the headlights by her intense view of their friendship.

This is a frequently funny piece, which lands its sharper segments like colourful daggers. The brittle pauses and faltering moments that interrupt Josie and Gemma’s 'show' become a comment on how hard it can be to keep going, with frustration on both sides translating into small slights and unkindnesses.

But while the show’s meta-mishaps are clever, there’s something not quite right here. At a certain point, the conceit runs away with the aim; the jokes overshadow the real-life issues swimming beneath the surface. It’s as if Goggles has lost track of itself. We’re laughing, but it’s not always clear why.