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We have all been there at some point in time, the excitement of taking those first steps towards having your own home. You have a job on the go, so you'll be able to save up, you find a, just about, affordable home in the City you want to live in, maybe London, the biggest city in the UK that has so much to offer, in terms of night life and career prospects.
Quickly you realise that you'll never be able to save up for your dream home, while paying for the cosier accommodation you're currently occupying.
What is the simple solution? Get a friend or two to split the bills with, it sounds perfect, it'll be a laugh, it will be an adventure and with the money you save you will be one step closer to being financially secure.
Indeed, on the 4th of April I saw the Tower Theatre's Production of Matt Hartley's Deposit (2015) where I was taken on a journey of the comedic compromises and deteriorating relationships that come when young professionals decide to share a living space.
The plot is established when we are introduced to couple Rachel (Chloe Ledger) and Ben (Adam Hampton-Matthews) as they welcome their friend Melanie (Sims Witherspoon) and boyfriend Sam (Iskander Javed) to their flat.
Instantly I could see the potential for the future division that would rise among the group. As Rachel and Melanie take a tour of the small living space, of the little kitchen, the one bedroom and humorous reference to their almost view of the Shard, with an overenthusiasm that makes you roll your eyes and laugh at the memory of your own naïve optimism.
The seeds of doubt in Rachel and Ben's plan to have another couple move in, so they can save for a deposit on their own place, are already planted when we get a glimpse of the various personalities between the four individuals.
With Sam being the very pragmatic and slightly pompous young doctor, who tries to take initiative in making the space liveable, as they've barely moved in their bags. While girlfriend Melanie, who works in marketing is just excited to live with her best friend, and enjoy living the high-life in London.
Rachel a schoolteacher who loves her job, is very giving and just wants everybody to love living together while moving forward in her life with Ben, a comptroller, gives the impression of someone who is trying very hard to be okay with his and Rachel's current living situation.
That was the impression I got when Rachel offers that the couples switch rooms six months into their year-long contract, and we see Ben shaking his head no behind their backs, establishing for me that he still wants to think of the place very much as his flat. Still they take all these differences on board under one roof, with laughter, white wine and a lets-show-how-much-we-love-this-idea selfie.
That first scene perfectly sets expectations for just how massively these four will fall out through the coming months.
At times it did feel like an old British sitcom, given the actor's fantastic comedic timing and some of the more ridiculous aspects of the characters at certain moments. While some may argue that the more sitcom moments made it seem less realistic, I found it very believable. Think about a time when you have lived in an overcrowded flat and think about some of the things that happened, maybe you overhead your flatmate having sex or you walked in on someone masturbating. Now that may have been hellish for you, but say someone could peak through your walls and watch these incidences from an objective standpoint. Don't you think they would laugh?
While a very funny play, I was always brought back from the humour to the serious portrayal of what it means to try and make it on your own. Particularly through Adam Hampton-Matthews portrayal of Ben; from the second scene onwards the character begins to be explored much further. The real turning point for Ben is his 30th birthday, a day that all in their mid-to-late twenties dread.
Ben is greeted to a little, intimate party with his girlfriend and flatmates. We see Ben's initial panic when he asks if anyone else was invited, followed by the relief when he is informed no one else is going to see where he currently lives.
What spoke to me most about this scene was when they're dancing and drinking, trying to coax Ben into enjoying his birthday, Melanie and Rachel kept chanting for Ben to show them the wolf. A reference to something he did when partying during their university days, we see Ben being brought out of his shell to the point he shows us the wolf.
He jumps onto the sofa sticks his hands in the air like claws and howls at the ceiling.
This moment of euphoria dies within seconds after Ben shouts "I'm thirty!" with his arms in the air. A look of realisation passes over his face and his arms make a sweeping gesture down to the floor. Ben's mood quickly shifts to wanting to get even more drunk and destructive, having to have Rachel help him to bed.
From here Ben's mood steadily begins to deteriorate, we see his dissatisfaction with life. He hates his job that he has to keep because he and Rachel are struggling to save. His living situation is beyond ideal as he begins to clash more frequently with Sam and Melanie. His relationship with Rachel begins to suffer with his increased outbursts of anger.
I felt Ben was arguably the most significant character in the play the more hopeless he became, because here you had someone who once had ambition and drive to make a success of himself in London. Only to become weighed down by the pressure to succeed by the time you reach a certain age.
For me watching each new struggle Ben went through, and each character-fault that came out as a result was certainly what I engaged with most, because it gave a voyeuristic look at everyone who thinks they need their life completely sorted by the time they turn thirty, at the pressure they put themselves through, reminding us that there is a difference between being ambitious and becoming obsessed with your achieving your goals, to the point it comes at the expense of every part of your life. I feel this is an important message for people to understand, as life in London becomes more expensive, jobs become more competitive and people do in fact become so obsessed to the point they can never be happy with what they have already accomplished.
This is why I thought that Ben's epiphany at the end, where he realises that it doesn't matter where he and Rachel have a life as long as they have one together, was quite an unexpected ending. We see them go through so many trials and tribulations in their romantic relationship due to their financial troubles that I didn't find that particular moment a more likely resolution.
Again this is where the comedic aspects of the play and the dramatic aspects balance one another out. The fact that they remain together, and decide that they don't need to live in the city they've been dreaming of living in their whole lives, not to mention the way Ben in his frustration has treated Rachel only for that not to have bigger repercussions, felt more like a sitcom ending. While it is a nice sentiment, that love concurs all and realising that ambition isn't everything, a part of me felt that in real life Ben and Rachel probably would have gone their separate ways eventually.
Although in saying that I do concede that, given they did not get their dream home in London, it is still very much a bitter-sweet ending, rather than an ideal resolution where all their problems are solved in the last five minutes. So in that respect, despite it not being a completely realistic ending, it was still an ending with which all watching can enjoy.
Whether it is laughing at the exchanges between each character as the cast's natural chemistry shines through their performance, or to be moved by the struggles that come with trying to get by in the world.
In summary, if you want a light-hearted enjoyable play that can pull you into moments of a deeper understanding of the real world, then I highly recommend coming to see the Tower Theatre's production of Deposit; I know for sure that I am glad to have been able to see it when I had the chance.
Photography by Robert Piwko
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