**** Northern Stage, Newcastle

Lyn Gardner
Monday November 13, 2006
The Guardian

It is not often, at the end of a show, that you long to rush up and hug the performers, but I had to resist the urge after this piece produced by Company Fierce and Quarantine. Quarantine is a remarkable theatre company that has created a body of beautiful, fragile and authentic work, which finds the extraordinary in the ordinary lives of real people.

Susan and Darren are mother and son; they live together in Manchester. They are like Little and Large. Susan is a tiny, warm woman with a toothy grin who cooks great shepherd's pie; Darren is a beanpole gay dancer. They like dancing together in the living room of their council house, and this is where we meet them on a night when they are throwing a party - and we're all invited. Some members of the audience even get to prepare the cheese and pineapple sticks for the buffet, which is served during the boogie after the show.

What unfolds over 90 minutes is an intimate portrait of Susan and Darren's life together. Though it is intricately choreographed, it never seems in the slightest bit contrived. Sometimes the nakedness of their relationship - the enduring tenderness and tiny tensions - makes you feel as though you have glimpsed an enormous secret.

As the ragged story of their lives unfolds, it dawns on you that not only are Susan and Darren discovering as much about each other as we are about them, but they are also shining a light on our own familial relationships. This is not so much a performance as a gift - one that comes straight from the heart.