The Stefan Golaszewski Plays

Love, in its torturous and enveloping splendour, is the subject of The Stefan Golaszewski Plays.

Divided into Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About a Girl He Once Loved and Stefan Golaszewski is a Widower, the ex-Footlights president uses his own name to delve into the experience of love at two points in life.

Aged 18 it is miraculous and explosive, aged 76, looking back on 42 years with his now dead wife, it is considered, painful and with a pull on him like quicksand.

Stefan Golaszewski,  as a performer, has the adorable, hysterical energy of a lamb that’s been fed  E-numbers then told his mother has become mutton.

This style is perfect for the first half, a beautifully scripted (by Stefan) example of being love-struck in a Walthamstow pub. The object of the 18-year-old’s affection has ‘hair and eyes and a dress…she looks exactly like women do in films and magazines’. Stefan is not a simpleton  but the appearance of the lovely Betty strips him of complexities and nuances, turning him into an admiration machine.

Alas, a twist in the tale takes the new-found centre of his world away but not before Stefan has had a night of valuable and touching passion. There is a moment when his crush asks if she can kiss him. Stefan rushes off stage, returning with a suitcase filled with tiny scraps of paper covered with the word ‘yes’. As he throws the scraps into the air and that little word rains down upon the delighted showman, smiles spread throughout the audience.

The second half is a darker take on love. Stefan has grown up into a C-list actor and married a lady he refers to as ‘Pudding’. Although, in the tick box, he cares about ‘Pudding’ to the point of fixation he is also materialistic, arrogant and complacent and his love is tainted by these qualities. Things in their gilded bubble burst. You would expect this to dull the excitability of Stefan’s performance yet a hyper tone, as incongruous as a sausage layer in a trifle, continued to underscore.

But the imperfection of a 28-year-old actor should not dissuade the reader against viewing a delightfully scripted, energetically executed foray into the wilds of the human heart.

The Stefan Golaszewski Plays runs until Saturday 9 January at:

The Bush
Shepherd’s Bush Green
Shepherd’s Bush
W12 8QD

Box office: 020 8743 3584