Barcelona play review: Lily Collins can’t save bland two-hander

Barcelona with Lily Collins, review and star rating: ★★☆☆☆

Emily in Paris star Lily Collins makes her West End debut opposite Spanish heavyweight Álvaro Morte in Barcelona, a two-hander set in a soon-to-be demolished apartment in the Spanish city. Writer Bess Wohl has on-boarded Lynette Linton, Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre, and the visionary behind the National Theatre’s Blues for an Alabama Sky and Shifters, but despite the triple-threat of star power, Barcelona never quite heats up.

It’s not necessarily the fault of Collins or Morte, two capable lead performers who conjure what they can from Bess Wohl’s script that too often feels bland. We meet Irene, an American visiting Barcelona, and local Manuel when they fall through the doors of his apartment in the heart of the city for a late-night hook-up. Collins’ Irene, dressed glamorously in a silver skirt, is hammered and cannot stop talking, but Manuel just wants to head to the bedroom. But what appears to be a straightforward hook-up unravels when the duo start sharing more about their lives. 

Lily Collins makes her West End debut in troubled two-hander

It’s hard to get below the surface of either character when the script too often relies on slapstick jokes and the type of overly simplistic language you’d expect to find on a US comedy television show. By the time Barcelona creeps into its final 40 minutes (side note, one hour 40 is almost always too long for a one-act show) the set-up starts to bore. 

It isn’t just Wohl’s script that feels anodyne: the timing for tense arguments is off, meaning language sometimes crescendos unnaturally, making disagreements between the pair feel forced. There are also issues with the structure: when Lily Collins’ Irene runs for the door halfway through the show, Manuel begs her not to leave, but Irene is so irritating that you don’t believe he wouldn’t be relieved. When the script finally starts to build tension, the twist is too gentle, and too little, too late, to rouse more than cursory interest.

I think Barcelona may fare much better in America, where perhaps there’s more patience for this style of humour. Barcelona lacks the depth and nuance needed for London; you rarely believe these two people exist, let alone anything that’s happening.

Barcelona plays at the Duke of York’s Theatre until 11 January

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