Examining the way couples communicate through 12 years of a relationship, The Session poses this question: if your love is based on miscommunication, what happens when you finally learn to speak to each other? It’s a classic boy-meets-girl story, but the charm of Andrew Muir’s play is that it offers not only insight into a long-term relationship, but also into the way people deal with language barriers and culture changes.

The Session is the story of Lena and Robbie, a couple who meet in a pub, fall for each other and get married. But what sets this apart from other generic love stories is that Lena is Polish and Robbie is British, meaning their initial love is based not on words but on a series of over-exaggerated movements and physical attraction. As Lena becomes more fluent in English, the cracks begin to show and the relationship starts to suffer. The audience acts as their counsellors in this ‘session’, allowing the pair to express their inner frustrations and emotions in order to try to salvage their relationship.

Muir’s script is individual, focused and like nothing I’ve ever really heard before. Illustrating the difficulty of a multilingual relationship, the couple are often found talking about two totally unrelated subjects, which creates the effect of one speaking a different language to the other (without actually requiring the audience to be fluent in Polish!). Creating a rhythmic disjointedness that represents not only the difficulty the pair have communicating but also the disharmony in their relationship, the script is a pleasure to listen to. It’s also full of wit, so that the more serious aspects of the evening don’t become too bleak.

Allowing the script to realise its full potential are the two leads: Tom Shepherd and Izabella Urbanowicz. Shepherd plays up to the full Hugh Grant English stereotype in his portrayal of Robbie, yet this doesn’t let him down in the more intense and confrontational scenes where he is passionate and convincing without letting it feel cringeworthy. Urbanowicz is equally impressive, seamlessly switching between English and snippets of Polish to further enhance the effect of miscommunication, and particularly shining in a touching monologue about her father.

Rūta Irbīte’s staging of this production begins with a mostly bare stage apart from a blue backdrop and two chairs. As the couple begin to retell their story, a range of props appear from under sheets and are used to illustrate certain scenarios – most notably, a large ‘The Lively Elk’ sign and a television showing football are used to present the couple in a pub. The direction by Debbie Hannan is similarly wonderful, fully utilising the Soho Theatre’s upstairs space by getting the actors to engage with the audience and transforming the basic set into different scenarios.

The Session is an interesting, thoughtful and often funny play that will leave you feeling both heartbroken and heart-warmed.

The Session is playing at the Soho Theatre until 28 November. For more information and tickets, see the Soho Theatre website. Photo: Richard Davenport.