The Stag’s Head **

LIKE A sing-a-long support group, the idea behind

Love Song For Losers

is that the audience listen to the spiel spun by seven characters as they bare their souls and sing for their supper – or something more mentally fulfilling – belting out a standard after each tale of death, desertion and disillusion- ment.

There is little originality to the stories told and although the cast do an acceptable job in bringing writer/ director Ruth McGowan’s characters to life, few of them express any sense of catharsis when they’re supposed to be singing their hearts out. The piece is dramatically inert.

The Stag’s Head was a poor choice of venue, further compounded by the fact that the house lights remained up throughout, robbing us of the shameless voyeurism promised in the programme. It would have worked better in a darkened room, where the confessional feel would have been amplified, without the use of a host and with a more defined role for the audience.

Runs until September 23rd