Lorraine & Alan

Well now, this is a salty little wind-whipped treat. Nel Crouch and Becky Ripley’s humorous, junk theatre take on the Scottish selkie myth is a triumph of layered, lo-fi storytelling and unexpected poignancy.

It might be helpful to arrive at the Lorraine & Alan without knowing the source material, as we meet our titular male, freshly minted degree in hand (“Marine Biology. High 2:2”).

He’s a bit of a waster is Alan (played with a cheeky wink by the Mathew Horne-a-like Adam Farrell), returning to his childhood bedroom in rural Norfolk to play Xbox and procrastinate. The only thing to rouse Alan from his torpor is his ongoing life aquatic, a fascination which leads him to a job running coastal seal tours and his first encounter with the enigmatic Lorraine (Katie Sherrard).

It’s a pitch shift in the play that sees the waves of wordplay and gentle comedy overlapped by an altogether otherworldly air to form something far more potent. Who is Lorraine? What is she doing lolloping around the wetlands? And whose is that sealskin coat bobbing about in the Blakeney surf?

The odd couple relationship provides plenty of literal fish-out-of-water comedy as Lorraine and her new baby buoy (heh) try to settle into a new life, despite the inescapable sense that something is amiss.

Peel back the sweet skin of this folksy fable, with live accompaniment provided by two waterproof-wearing singing soundrackers, and you’ll find a very hard-working foursome who tease out the weightier thematic threads of isolation, belonging and possessiveness with a wonderful lightness of touch.