The hottest summer on record and the last summer before the war – and now everyone’s shagging like rabbits! Everyone except for Bernice…
The hottest summer on record and the last summer before the war – and now everyone’s shagging like rabbits! Everyone except for Bernice…
The Summer of Love
I referred to Simon Guerrier’s previous play ‘The Lost Museum’ as the most adult Bernice Summerfield so far due to the way it tackled some pretty macabre themes head on with a no nonsense attitude. One year later and he’s already gone a step further, although this is ‘adult’ in a very different way.
The Summer of Love pulls no punches in its depiction of ranchy, erotic, no strings attached, straightforward, simply for the hell of it sex. It aims to shock, and it goes about it in a straightforward manner, firing off all the sexual appetites of the recurring characters we’ve come to know and seeing what sticks. It’s a slow build with things slowly developing from feisty innuendo laden dialogue, and despite ending in a massive orgy it somehow it never descends into purile infantality. Somehow…
The cast are really on form and make the most of the change in direction. The strange plotting allows the characters to gently sparkle on their own with the plot emerging from them as opposed to the other way around. Compared to how functional the series started just a few years before its remarkable how mature things have become in just a few short series.
And despite the slow build of the plot, there’s a mountain of different things going on here. Bev Tarrant has taken some unusual measures to secure her authority in the Collection, leaving Adrian in the cold. There’s Bernice’s now permanently on, on-off relationship with Jason going through a lonely patch, with Doggles hanging around the sidelines wanting to ‘take advantage’ of the situation. This in particular gives a wealth of delightful dialogue, and despite the fact I was never fooled that this wasn’t Steven Wickham doubling up, he’s clearly relishing the difference between the two parts. Perhaps to distinguish the voice though Joseph’s voice has been altered slightly for the worse which is a shame.
This is a very unconventional play that goes places no Big Finish story has gone before. It dances between clever innuendo and blatant crudeness, political scheming and teenage dating… An acquired taste perhaps but a very important release all the same to show exactly what the series is capable of.
8 / 10