Music and dance
David referred to the fact that music is a common constituent of both Beginning and Middle. Before the curtain rises for the National Theatre production of Middle, the song that is playing in the auditorium is Come on Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners. Although this is not specified in the published text, the choice is not accidental. The song is an upbeat, dance-floor filler; a staple of wedding receptions which serves as a marker for the sexual energy and hope at the start of a relationship.

In the middle of the play, Gary puts on ‘their song’, My Lover’s Prayer by Otis Redding, in an attempt to bring Maggie back to the love they have shared. It is literally Gary’s prayer of course, and when Otis sings “It can’t be too serious we can’t talk it over” he expresses Gary’s hope that their problems can be solved by the very talk they are trying to have. As Gary begins to dance toward Maggie in a wonderfully awkward “Dad dance” style, it echoes a similar moment in Beginning when Danny starts to dance to try to kick start his seduction of Laura. Gary’s performance is another moment of attempted seduction in a way, albeit emotional rather than literal, and in very different circumstances. His awkward display has the same dramatic effect of being both helplessly funny and poignant, because like Danny’s, his gesture is somewhat desperate and seems likely to fail.

As the house lights came up in the NT auditorium after the end of Middle, the Magic Numbers’ song “Forever Lost” rings out: “Cause I’m forever lost/Looks like it all went wrong/What am I to do?/What am I to do?”. Maggie and Gary do no know what they will do. They’ve certainly come on a journey from the bright confidence of “Come on Eileen”, though perhaps there is dramatic irony in the youthful delarations in that lyric: “These people round here/Wear beatdown eyes sunk in smoke-dried face/So resigned to what their fate is/But no not us (no never)/No not us (no never)/We are too young and clever.”