Knowing someone for decades often comes with special insights that new and budding friendships can’t quite replicate. There are endless inside jokes, shared memories, and an innate understanding of each other’s likes, dislikes and emotional quirks.
However, years of shared history can also harbour suppressed feelings and underlying tensions. In most cases, these feelings remain buried and touchy subjects are carefully side-stepped. But what happens if, over one boozy night, everything boils to the surface?
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This is the question Melbourne Theatre Company’s upcoming play, Never Have I Ever, sets out to answer. Already a sold-out success in the UK, its arrival on February 15 at Arts Centre Melbourne is highly anticipated – by audiences and creator Deborah Frances-White (also the host of the wildly successful podcast, The Guilty Feminist) alike.
“I’m both Australian and British and I’m loving seeing the way that the Australians are interpreting it,” Deborah explains. Directed by Tasnim Hossain, Never Have I Ever’s Australian debut stars an exciting cast: Chika Ikogwe (Heartbreak High), Simon Gleeson (Les Misérables), Katie Robertson (Deadloch) and Sunny S Walia (Shantaram).
“The first production was in August 2023 and we’re in a very different political moment in February 2025, so the play is responding to that,” Deborah tells me.
Set over a single night, Never Have I Ever takes place at a ‘last supper’ of sorts. After convincing their wealthy, high-flying (and importantly liberal) friends, Tobin and his younger wife Adaego, to invest in their restaurant venture, couple Jacq and Kas must deliver the news of its bankruptcy – over one increasingly explosive meal.
“One night I had an after-hours lock-in at a bar with four old friends who’d been to university together,” Deborah says, speaking about the inspiration behind the play.
“I had recently met them, so I became like the audience that evening. I enjoyed the interplay of their dynamics, the sexual tensions, the old stories that were perhaps buried, the teasing… and I started to wonder because we all have those dynamics with old friends – what could have been, what was and we don’t talk about… I thought that would make a great central idea for a play.”
Deborah’s award-winning comedy podcast, The Guilty Feminist, also provided her with over nine years of material – taken from equally hilarious, raw and challenging on-mic conversations with everyone from Dolly Alderton to Shaparak Khorsandi.
“I wanted to explore… some of the themes that I’d really started to understand through doing The Guilty Feminist around identity, class, money and sex,” Deborah explains. “And then I thought, what’s the most surprising response to ‘We’ve lost your money?’… And then I came up with the central, ‘indecent proposal’ of the play.”
Named after the infamous drinking game, Never Have I Ever is as full of (wine-fuelled) humour and wit as it is simmering tensions and explosive secrets. “These four people are desperately looking for connection and they’ve often misunderstood each other or missed each other’s marks,” Deborah says.
“But there is a love, a history, a connection and over the course of the play, we see where it comes alive and becomes a powerful force for good, and where it is manipulated and becomes a source of pain.”
Most importantly, Never Have I Ever is a guaranteed good night out. Deborah wants audiences to know, first and foremost, that Never Have I Ever is a comedy. For all its introspective conversations and political underpinnings, this is a play about people – what she describes as “an emotional Choose Your Own Adventure”.
“There are no easy answers in this play… a piece of theatre shouldn’t be a lecture and there shouldn’t be any formal conclusions,” Deborah explains.
“I want people to know they’re going to be entertained. These are really fun, skilled actors. They’re witty people. They’re having a good time. They’re having a big night, a lock-in with lots of drinks and fun. I don’t want audiences to think, ‘What time is it? When can I get to the bar?’ I think theatregoers deserve to be riveted, and I really hope that they are.”
Tickets to Never Have I Ever, on stage from 15 February to 22 March at Arts Centre Melbourne, are selling fast. Get yours here. Under 30? Snap up half price seats.
This article At the theatre: ‘Never Have I Ever’ is a hilariously debaucherous dinner party gone wrong appeared first on Fashion Journal.
2025-02-14 03:47:00
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