The Contest

Jennifer Rowland's play may only run an hour and a quarter in its Fringe incarnation, but it packs a lot of relationship into that time.

Karl and Amanda are young art students in love. They are also each entering a contest that could set the winner on the road to fame and even fortune. Enter Faith: young, ambitious, game-playing and a true manipulator.

Flash forward fifteen years and their lives have not taken the courses they seemed destined for. Success beckons but guilt holds it back. Time to unpeel the onion and let one person in on a secret.

There are touches of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, of Art and even of All About Eve in this wholly absorbing, sharp play about ambition, love (or at least sex), trust, weakness and how you measure success in life.

The acting is excellent throughout. Jules Willcox shows us two very different people as student and adult Anna. Christian Barillas on the other hand gives us a Karl who can never shake off the mistakes of his youth. It's Helya de Barros who demonstrates the widest range as Faith, someone who often seems to change from moment to moment but who has the determination to be ambitious for others. Dan Kozlowski may only need to be slimy and shallow as their professor but he does that in fine style.

This is a real play, often witty, always involving and excellently staged. It was a shame that it played to such a small audience – seek it out, it's well worth it.