It’s Christmas but not all is well in director Liam Calvert’s confident and highly accomplished directorial debut.
Set in London, A Night Like This centres on a chance meeting between two men: Oliver (Alexander Lincoln) and Lukas (Jack Brett Anderson). We follow the pair as they contemplate life, love and just about everything else you can think of, as, over the course of a night, they trawl the streets and bars of London
Things don’t begin cheerily for Lucas who we first meet on a bridge contemplating suicide. Thinking better of it he heads to a bar where he meets the obnoxious and outspoken Oliver. The pair, rather coincidently, again meet up on a bus. Thinking that he’s being picked up Lucas tells Oliver that he’s gay. Oliver keeps is cards, regarding his sexuality, close to his chest leaving the audience to wonder, for most of the running time, if he is looking for love or just someone to burden his troubles on.
The pair then walk, talk, (they do an awful lot of talking) and head to various bars and nightclubs where they open up to each other about how shitty their lives are. Oliver is in debt whilst Lucas is a disillusioned out of work actor in his 30s who has just split from his partner. In-between the chatting the pair, rather strangely befriend a young homeless man (Jimmy Ericson) who tags along for the fun.
There might not be much to A Night Like This but, thanks to two charismatic performances from its leading men, Alexander Lincoln especially is a standout, it turns to be a charming and hugely enjoyable piece of entertainment.
