From our London correspondent Norm Seli:

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REVIEW: Some Girls

So, I went to see David Schwimmer the day that he closed his West End debut. I didn't think that he'd be very good. I was sort of going out of curiosity. I saw Matt Damon in "This is our Youth" for the same reason... and expected the same result.

To my pleasant surprise, I was wrong. He was pretty good... There wasn't too much demanded of him. It's a single Act play about a man about to get married. Before he marries this 23-year old (he's in his mid-30s) he flies around the US to re-visit four ex-girlfriends and make amends... or at least apologize. He never really gets the response that he expects.

The set was very clever as the center rotates beds and the curtain cuts in and out to create 4 different hotel rooms...a small act in each.

First he visits the girl that he dumped in high school; the liberated doper/slut from grad school; the married woman with whom he had an affair while an assistant professor; and finally the great love of his undergrad years. Conflict, argument and earnest conversation ensue...there was a moment of two when I expected him to blurt out, "But, we were on a break!" But these women were not Rachel and he really wasn't Ross. David is not yet the kind of actor that can or will bury himself in the role, so the part of David Schwimmer that comes out in Friends' Ross, comes out in "Some Girls" but you don't feel like you're watching the untold adventures of Ross Geller.

The original title of the play was "Some Girls that I've Fucked Over" and that really isn't Ross...but it was this guy! The first girlfriend (Catherine Tate) was eh.... okay, I guess. Awkward, but perhaps that was her way into the character. The second girlfriend (Sara Powell) was much better...but pretty standard stuff. A line about David liking to use a strap-on caught most of us off guard, but other than that -- no big surprise. If we had continued in the same vein, the show would have ground down and I would have probably begun to nap.

But woman number 3 -- the college professor -- threw curve balls, and did it convincingly. She woke me up and demanded my attention.(Lesley Manville -- married to Gary Oldman, I believe).

Saffron Burrows (Andromache in Troy; Gracie in Frida) plays the fourth woman, and she was magnificent. This woman can act and it really is a tribute to David that he could keep up with her. Fast and furious, clever and beautiful. Grabbing your heart strings one minute and crushing your...well, something manly... the next. She takes the show to the next level -- the level promised by Lesley Manville.

In short: David was better than I expected -- quite good actually -- but the show is made better by Lesley Manville and Saffron Burrows...a lot better. Worth seeing -- except that it just closed.

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