Braff scrubs up well in black comedy

ALL NEW PEOPLE, Opera House, Manchester
ANGST-FUELLED edgy modern black comedy with a suicidal, existence-is-futile core? That’ll be Zach Braff...

The “Scrubs” leading man invests a nervous energy in much of his work, whether it is the comedy sitcom for which he is best known, or his successful indie movie “Garden State”.

In this straight-through, 100-minute play, he pushes over the edge into a bleak comedy that starts as it means to go on.

The curtain opens on Braff, as the suicidal Charlie, alone in a beach house on an island closed for winter, standing on a chair, noose round his neck, having a last smoke — and wondering what to do with the fag-end when he has finished it.

In breezes real-estate broker Emma (Eve Myles of “Torchwood” fame), a similarly disconnected soul ... then her fireman-drug dealer boy friend Myron (Paul Hilton) ... then the $15,000-a-night escort, Kim (Susannah Fielding) sent to keep him company by his wealthy best friend, whose house he has borrowed.

Okay; it’s more than a bit contrived, but given the corner Braff has seemingly deliberately written himself into, the play’s energy and sharp, dark comedy keep the whole thing afloat — aided by insert films of the individuals’ outside lives with guest appearances by the likes of David Bradley and Amanda Redman.

And, it turns out, the one-liners, the awkward shifts from comedy to depression, the incessantly “modern” existences of drug-fuelled thirtysomethings, are in the end all based on bleak, empty little lives and people looking for meaning.

They might not find it, particularly, but the four actors offer a lot of work (Hilton particularly) and more than a few laughs along the way.

Braff’s character, it turns out, has genuine anguish: an existential moment as an air-traffic controller saw him watch two ants fighting over a crumb on his desk rather than two planes heading towards each other, six deaths being the result. And hence the suicidal thoughts: the guy’s life was bleak and friendless anyway; the mistake merely confirmed it.

So, does Charlie discover that these misfits are the only friends he has?

Pretty much; though the show does end on a suitably chilly note: the noose having been pulled from the ceiling, the roof has come with it and it’s now snowing indoors. too...