It's Not Cute Anymore at Theatre503 was cute, actually

Getting to see It's Not Cute Anymore was a real challenge as there were only six performances and it was a busy week for me. I managed to get there by missing a regular evening meeting and cutting a work meeting short so that I could escape from the office soon after 5:30pm.

The journey worked well and I got to The Latchmere around 6:30pm. I had been there only a few days previously and did not fancy the limited choice in the dining end so I went for my bar snack of choice, nachos, which filled a gap without making any sparks fly. Spoons do them better.

For some reason Theatre503 had moved to 7:30pm start times from their traditional 7;45 start. That extra 15 minutes took the pressure off eating and was something that made the theatre different from the rest. The play was only 75 minutes long so hardly warranted an early start.

Despite staying downstairs in the pub later than usual I was still able to position myself skilfully in the theatre's reception area so that I was first in and was able to claim my usual seat in the middle of the front row, still warm from my visit there four days previously.

It's Not Cute Anymore introduced us to two twenty-something women in marginally creative jobs for a magazine. They were muddling through but were hoping to be writers and had entered a publisher's competition with a loose idea based on some sexy sexual material they had worked on together at university. Somehow Marianne Faithful was in the mix.

There were two other main characters, their boss and an aunt, which the the women played. The male publisher appeared on recorded voice only. Both techniques worked.

What followed was a creditable sit-com that addressed many of the aspirations and concerns of young women in London and their were many knowing laughs from the mainly young audience. I was laughing too as it was genuinely funny.

It was also very good natured. Sure the two women did some lewd and some wrong things but they were essentially nice people and it was easy to like them. Well, I did. And because I liked them I cared about what they did and what happened to them. So the zero hours contract in a shoe warehouse was a real disappointment.

It's Not Cute Anymore had a clear purpose, to be funny, and managed to be that for well over an hour. It was cute, actually.