Rotterdam, Trafalgar Studios review ★★★★★

Having recently transferred from Battersea’s Theatre503 to Trafalgar Studios, Jon Brittain’s Rotterdam explores how gender and sexual identity affect and inform the most intimate relationships. Set in Holland’s Rotterdam, it’s a bittersweet romantic comedy with a transgender story at its core. Touching, well-crafted, and sparkling with hilarity, Rotterdam is a crucial addition to the recent media increase of transgender awareness, providing real insight and human truth into one our society’s often-silenced stories.

Alice (Alice McCarthy) is plucking up the courage to come out to her parents as a lesbian when her partner Fiona (Anna Martine) tells her that she is transgendered and wishes to live as a man called Adrian. With Adrian’s brother Josh (Ed Eales-White), they are a few Brits alone in Rotterdam and have barely attempted to integrate with the city. Alice becomes drawn to a younger Dutch girl Lelina (Jessica Clark) who provides an escape from her conflicting feelings about her relationship.

Brittain’s script is well-crafted and makes use of little reveals along the way to cajole its audience. At the risk of exhausting this trope, it instead culminates as great comedic relief for an otherwise difficult and emotional second half. The writing is strongest when dealing with universals of relationships, but remains nuanced throughout the scenes exploring transgender issues.

Director Donnacadh O’Briain chooses the right moments to highlight - a beautiful scene with Alice helping Adrian with binding, and a heart-wrenching image of Adrian looking in a mirror wearing a flowery dress. The colour scheme of the set is a smart yet subtle allusion to the blue, pink and white of the trans flag, and the soundtrack is a Euro-pop playlist of Robyn and Christine and the Queens.The cast is superb, with Clark and Eales-White making the most out of their slightly underwritten characters. But it’s McCarthy’s Alice and Martine’s Adrian who are the stand-outs, gracefully intertwining comedy, stoicism, and anguish into their roles.

Perhaps the only weakness of the play is that it gets slightly trapped in its genre. The resonating themes burst at the seams of the romantic comedy formula: at times a bit sit-commy and the conclusion feels lack-lustre and forced. Nevertheless, Rotterdam is an important addition to London’s current theatre scene and well worth a trip to Trafalgar Studios.