Falling in and out of love, all at once

READING Rep Theatre kicks off its autumn season tonight with a revival of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years.

Directed by Hal Chambers, with choreography by Georgina Lamb, the show is the story of two New Yorkers, Cathy (Martha Kirby) and Jamie (Guy Woolf), and their five-year marriage.

As their lives move in different directions, Jamie starts at the beginning, while Cathy tells the story from the end, working backwards.

North London actor Guy describes the show as “heart-breaking”. “They’re very young, they meet at 23 and they break up when they’re 28 and in that time they fall hard and fast for each other.

“It’s all very sparky and passionate. They get married very quickly and Jamie’s career accelerates so quickly, he’s a writer and he gets famous.

“His book is adapted into a film and his career is going so well but he’s almost like a belated child star, he’s kind of unformed as a person and his life happens to him very quickly.

“Then because Cathy starts at the end, we know this relationship falls apart, there’s no suspense. It’s then just like ‘oh my god, why have they broken up?’

“It’s a classic story told in an innovative way and maybe there’ll be some healing, maybe there’ll be some trauma processing.

“I’m really hoping the audience come on the journey with us because it’s this specific five-year crazy period in their lives.

“Martha’s unbelievable, she’s a proper leading lady, so I definitely had imposter syndrome on day one.”

Martha, from Bristol, says: “I came straight from Edinburgh Fringe to here, which is a bit of a whirlwind but it was really good fun. I’ve never visited Reading Rep, so I’m excited to do that and explore and see the sights.”

The Last Five Years is at Reading Rep Theatre in King’s Road, Reading, until Sunday, October 12. For more information, visit readingrep.com