I Love You, Now What?

August 5, 2024

31st July – 24th August

Few questions are as difficult to answer as: ‘What does it mean to be human?’ but Sophie Craig’s debut play, I Love You, Now What? (directed by Olivier-nominated Toby Clarke) does a pretty good job at answering it through a tender exploration of anger, grief, love, lust, and laughter.

Following a sell-out run at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023 and an Offie nomination, a brand-new and extended version of I Love You, Now What? is running at Park Theatre in Finsbury Park until 24 August. If you get the chance to go and see it, you simply must.

Ava (Sophie Craig, who also wrote the play) and Theo (Andy Umerah) meet in a nightclub to the soundtrack of Cameo’s “Candy”. Their meet-cute is crafted to perfection and the initial chemistry between the two characters is palpable.

“Few questions are as difficult to answer as: ‘What does it mean to be human?’ but Sophie Craig’s debut play, I Love You, Now What?, does a pretty good job at answering it”

However, as a new chapter in Ava’s life begins, her Dad’s (Ian Puleston-Davies) health deteriorates. Despite the profound sadness of her Dad’s worsening condition, there is still laughter and more importantly, there is always hope which is meticulously depicted through a piece of piano music her Dad begins working on.

Although Ava may be walking around with a “daft f***ing smile” on her face, as pointed out by her Dad, grief affects her relationship with Theo long before her Dad’s death which according to her “bumbling encyclopedia” of a counsellor, John, is all to do with the ‘five stages of grief’

On that note, Puleston-Davies’ performance between Dad and counsellor is totally seamless and incredibly impressive, embodying both the characters and their quirks to perfection.

In the months following her Dad’s death, Ava struggles to come to terms with the fact that while her world has stopped, everyone else’s has carried on. Yes, they may have sent flowers and checked in for a couple of weeks after it happened, but that soon stops. Her relationship with Theo suffers as a result, and after a particularly heated argument, they break up.

Ava is given the space to grieve and at the end of the play, Theo joins Ava at her Dad’s special place, one year after his death.

“Do you want to get a coffee?’, she asks him.

“Yes, but only because I’m thirsty”, he replies, in a poignant full circle from the first time they met.

As the audience shuffled, and sniffled, out of the theatre, gratefully accepting a tissue from the theatre attendant, only two words sprung to mind: Now What?