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| REVIEWS | BY JONATHAN ALLEN |
 CHANGE OF HEART |
Professor Jessie Sands (Julie-Kate Oliver) leads vital research into organ transplant surgery. She also suffers from the very life-threatening condition that she studies, and is in urgent need of a heart and lung transplant herself. For all this, she’s a surprisingly dislikeable character, snappy and selfish with both her husband and boarding-school son, thawing only for expository reminiscences of happy tangos with her doctor and former flame, the sexily-accented Dr Eduardo Cortes (Gary Condes). Jessie competes for first place in the waiting list with plucky, hospital-bound 17-year-old Anna Robinson (Estelle Morgan), whose endless good humour cannot be stemmed even by the tubes up her nose. Although no pioneering researcher, she does have her youth and her celebrity dad’s chequebook on her side. It seems a big moral face-off is looming, but then a massive multiple train pile-up which kills dozens at Paddington Station means organs are available, and the question of who should get priority is disappointingly deferred. Robbed of this impetus, the second half meanders: post-op Jessie, revitalised, is ravishing in slinky red dresses but no less sulky. Irritation is compounded by Angela Simpson’s detailed set, which, clever and smart as it is, gives rise to some of the most frenzied and noisy scene-changing I’ve ever seen. This is unengaging as drama, with jokes too prim and infrequent to be black comedy. The horrible irony cannot be avoided: this play lacks a heart. Jonathan Allen n New End Theatre 020 7794 0022 Until March 6 |
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