One Hour Only

"There’s people like people everywhere," says Marley to AJ. Marley is a sex-worker who keeps not needles, but textbooks on forensic biology beneath her pillow. AJ, her almost-client, is a Muslim youth who would rather learn how to build bridges at Cardiff University than how to build bombs in the Yemen. Sometimes the subversion of a stereotype can be just as predictable as the stereotype itself.

One Hour Only, part of the Old Vic New Voices Edinburgh season, is a sex comedy without the sex. First-time prostitute Marley and putative punter AJ end up foregoing sexual intercourse in favour of the verbal sort. They discuss everything from London to their home life to their academic ambitions. They even build a bridge together, an activity so frought with meaning it’s a minor miracle the bridge does not collapse under its own symbolic weight.

Written by performance poet Sabrina Mahfouz*, One Hour Only has more laughs than much of the rest of New Voices season. However, although its two performers prove themselves competent at comedy (Faraz Ayub as AJ in particular) their characters struggle to convince. The strained cockney accent Nadia Clifford gives Marley slips more frequently than her sexy, silky dressing gown.

*This review previously stated incorrectly that Sabrina Mahfouz was an "old hand" at the Fringe, which is not the case. We apologise for the error.