A timeless meditation on the fragile and messy reality of a situationship
Crocodile Tears is a melancholic collage of a relationship that never quite was, stitched with fragments of memory, longing and cinematic haze. Labyrinth Productions’ latest piece, written by Natascha Norton and directed by Rosie Morgan-Males, is a multimedia portrait of the situationship achingly familiar to most of us who have lingered too long in the spaces between what is and what could be.
The story follows HIM and HER, two university students entangled in an undefined relationship. She’s intensity and yearning; he stays distant and elusive. Their dynamic recalls Carrie and Big, reimagined in student dorms, lit by fairy lights and shaped by term-time breakes.
The visual world of Crocodile Tears is its strongest language. At its centre is a bed with oversized pillows, while a projection screen flickers behind with emotional subtext. Stylised edits of blooming flowers, vintage film clips and cinematic expressions of female rage are paired with an intense, moody soundtrack, reminiscent of Lizzy Grant’s early work. These projections also expand the narrative, showing scenes between HER and HIM, glimpses of their relationship, computer screens mid-chat, and almost surreal metaphors for her rumination. At times, HER even interacts with HIM through the screen, blurring the line between real and remembered.
A striking scene is one of HER typing to ChatGPT, asking for help navigating her spiralling emotions. As the keyboard clicks echo through the room, we’re reminded of Carrie Bradshaw decoding heartbreak at her laptop. It’s raw and strangely intimate; no long monologues or overwrought declarations, just glances, various postures and the silence between lines.
Elektra Voulgari Cleare as HER embodies that familiar student intensity, wild, impulsive, and deeply attached, by the way she curls into herself on the bed and the way her fingers hesitate over keys for unspoken answers. She dreams deeply, yet finds herself caught in a world that never dreams her back. Her outfit, chunky silver jewellery, flared sleeves and flowy trousers that skim over her feet adds to this fairy-like soft vulnerability, reflecting her emotional openness and youthful fragility.
Flynn Ivo’s HIM has a taller, quiet, slightly aloof, protective presence. His performance lands somewhere between vulnerability and emotional opacity. This polished, always-on-the-move look contrasts with HER more homebound, pyjama-clad presence, emphasising his avoidance and emotional distance. His stillness perfectly balances her intensity, and though their chemistry is often restrained, it simmers powerfully beneath every gesture.
Thematically, Crocodile Tears is about duplicity, emotional loyalty and the way heartbreak fragments memory. Norton and Morgan-Males frame the relationship as both personal and generational: everyone knows a HIM, everyone has felt like HER. There’s something haunting in how the relationship hovers in that liminal space: not love, not friendship, not nothing.
Still, as absorbing as the aesthetic and emotional tone are, the piece at times drifts rather than drives. There’s a sense of something almost achieved. The emotion is palpable, but it might benefit from sharper pacing or a deeper build in narrative tension. The mood is established brilliantly; the challenge emerges in what follows.