At last! A writer who understands estate agency, says Big T

So our lady-editor said: “Get thee down to a London pub (last Thursday) for us, dahling – all exps paid (yeh, I bet), they’re doing an estate agency thing in an upper room, and there’s a press night.”

And indeed there was, for above the Latchmere pub on Battersea Park Road is a small but perfectly formed theatre. It only seats 60, so it’s as intimate as a minor Foxtons branch and, as the play was entitled ‘SOLD’, about as believable as one of their windows. That’s actually not fair – the play is extremely good and superbly acted.

SOLD, which runs until May 14, was billed as a ‘biting comedy set in the cut-throat world of property sales, where the drive for material success eclipses all other considerations’ – no more F jokes, I promise.

The fictitious firm, Granger & Co, is staffed by the usual bundle of assorted negs.

Anthony is going through a mid-life crisis (wish I was young enough to remember mine); Gary is mid-divorce and worrying about losing child contact; Hilary (Abigail Thaw, Morse’s daughter) is distraught that a younger, prettier model – Mandy (Kellie Shirley of Eastenders fame) whose mantra is “I learnt early in life the magic rule: sex sells, and I just can’t help it” – is about to steal her sales, and it’s not just her NAEA Technical Award that swings them (the sales), but other attractive qualifications.

If you remember a TV sitcom on agency also called SOLD and starring Kris Marshall (BT advert, My Family, Love Actually) and thought it rubbish as I did, have no fear: this play is streets ahead; chalk and cheese, frankly.

SOLD is beautifully written by Suzie Miller, who must have been an agent at some stage in her history, so true to life are the characters and storylines. The acting is absolutely faultless and very moving in places and oh so tightly directed by Natalie Ibu.

The intimacy of the theatre, where no one is more that 50ft from the shop floor, and the front row virtually sitting on the photocopier (I heard one but never saw it), is remarkable.

Granger and Co’s prize instruction is a £10m Bishops Avenue prop at 3% multi (so I felt totally at home at once), but the negotiators are on individual com and as pressured and bear-pit-like as you would expect when struggling to find THE applicant.
 
At a time when each of the negotiator’s sordid and mixed-up personal lives could be cured in an instant by making the sale, other perfectly believable complications arise. You will associate with the ‘staff’ at once and I wouldn’t mind betting you’ll leave thinking “Been there, done that – got blood on my shirt/blouse to prove it”.
    
Please go and see this production if you are in London. It’s even worth the journey in if you’re out in the sticks – a couple of hours watching SOLD at Theatre503 in Battersea is worth days of pointless CPD.

Trust me. I’m an estate agent.
 
Box Office 020 7978 7040
www.theatre503.com