Review: Forna Cape – chaotic beachside improv about hot people, pashing, and maybe true love?

Erin Harrington reviews Forna Cape, presented by the Court Jesters, at the Court Theatre, Thursday 18 September.

The current Court Jesters’ improvised show was initially programmed as Zeitgeist, a placeholder that would allow the company to respond to whatever was floating to the top of the pop cultural soup. Forna Cape looks to our current collective obsession with reality shows about super-hot, vulnerable, emotionally-illiterate, volatile people hooking up and breaking up, looking for love while trying to advance their social media careers. It’s silly, sloppy and a bit slutty – a fun but chaotic 75 minutes of sex(ual frustration) on the beach.

The Wakefield Family Front Room is done up like a beach resort –  yoga mat, towels, palm fronds, flower wall. A fire pit with wood yoinked from the theatre’s pizza ovens sits next to one of the white sectional couches from Twelfth Night. MC Caitlin Penhey, in a great summer frock, introduces improvisors Ben Kent, Jeff Clark, Millie Hanford, and Vito Strati, who strut and pose for the audience in a bid to be the star of the show. Muso Dan Robertson sits up the back on keys. Penhey works to set a great tone – dumb and a little raunchy without being gross.

Before the show she has has harvested a list of names and occupations from the audience, which players draw out of a bowl. Hanford plays our bachelorette Lola, a vapid and vulnerable fitness influencer from Essex with a mane of pink hair. The others cycle through a rogues’ gallery of suitors, donning silly wigs and bits of resort wear as potential partners arrive then get voted off the island. To start, there’s a ship’s captain (Clark really illustrating why he’s won pun awards), a hot farmhand who moonlights as a tractor model (Strati, offering terrific physical comedy), and a Scottish dinosaur hunter with a secret (Kent, prowling around the stage and backing himself into very funny narrative corners). Later, we meet a surgeon, a yoga teacher, and a guy who does something with ropes. The players are great at finding conflict within their own characters and in their relationships, then pushing towards a cascade of increasingly silly revelations. They play to the audience / camera as much as they do each other, while Penhey acts as host and voiceover, offering droll commentary on the action and directing scenes where necessary.

The format itself is made up of games and prompts designed to mimic the dates, weird challenges and staged conflicts of shows like Love Island and Married At First Sight, all leading up to a final declaration of love. It’s very funny. Flirty poolside chats and offers from the audience lead to dates at Subway Eastgate mall, an ice fishing disaster, and something involving walruses. The players do an excellent job of fleshing out the world and responding quickly to each other’s offers, all while highlighting the absurdity of the scenarios, and working to bring narrative threads together in a satisfying way. There’s a strong understanding of genre.

That said, there’s also a lot going on over the 75 minutes, a long and loose runtime, especially once you add in music, and frenetic shifts in lighting. There’s scope to kill some darlings (but not the actual suitor darlings, that’s a different show) and build in a bit more focus and structure – which would also help the audience, as we anticipate certain genre conventions – while also better embracing the comic and narrative opportunities provided by things like confession cams. Forna Cape feels like a really good proof of concept for a tighter and more controlled show, so it’s a pity it’s only a three night run, as it would be great to see where it ends up.

That’s not a comment on its entertainment value; we all have a great time. At the end Hanford monologues with squeaky-voiced, moist-eyed sincerity about being a ‘really, really fit girl standing in front of some less fit men’ and the audience love it, cheering as not one but two couples emerge from the boozy, sweaty, slutty fray. True love wins, at least until the next season.

Forna Cape plays until Saturday 20 September.