Barcelona review by GEORGINA BROWN

You can take Emily out of America, but you can't take America out of Emily. 

Which is precisely the point of Emily In Paris, the hit Netflix comedy drama, so ridiculously moreish that its fifth season has just been announced.

All thanks to Lily Collins's Emily, the unsquashably chirpy charmer who waltzes around Paris in outfits to die for, failing to learn French and so forcing everyone to speak English. 

Very quickly, she has tout le monde doing everything her way. And here's Emily in London. 

Or, rather, Lily Collins making her stage debut as an American abroad, this time in Barcelona, the title of Bess Wohl's play.

She bursts into a city apartment wearing a sequined jumpsuit Emily would not have been seen dead in, off her face on sangria, having lost one of her chunky-heeled silver sandals like a modern-day Cinderella. So will this be a fairy tale?

One of the strengths of this tricksy two-hander is that it keeps you guessing.

Director Lynette Linton's production opens with a ghostly vibe, as the shadow of a young woman dances on the wall, and then – with a chilling scream – comes over all gothic horror.

The mood then mellows into a rom-com with the arrival of our otherwise nameless Cinderella and the flat's owner, Manuel – though she is so sloshed she calls him 'Manolo', as in shoe designer Blahnik. A very Emily gaffe.

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She, and a gang of girlfriends, had been on a hen-do weekend away, soaking up the cheap wine, when she accepted a dare to chat up the older Spaniard at the bar.

And as one thing evidently led to another, she seems to have been whisked away to his apartment. Indeed, she's drunk enough to find it 'cute' (actually, she thinks everything is cute), though it's more dingy student digs than sexy love nest.

Between snogging, they chat. 'Love is the language of Italy. What is Spanish the language of?' asks squiffy Cinders. 'Spain,' answers a dry Manuel.

Then it darkens again when she totters out to the loo. Mysterious Manuel (a fine, understated Alvaro Morte, who plays criminal mastermind The Professor in Netflix crime series Money Heist) rolls up the sleeves of his black shirt and sets his jaw. Scary.

But when she returns he opens a bottle of rioja, licks her foot and they giggle about the penis-shaped whistle she finds in her pocket (one of the spoils of the hen-do) before the play takes an unconvincing talky turn.

Morte's macho, morose Manuel hates Americans: 'Your big cars, your movies, your McDonald's... your stupid music, your stupid wars.' Hardly this young woman's fault.

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So what is moody Manuel up to? Revenge on behalf of his nation? As her phone battery runs down to 3 per cent, this woman from the land of the free is looking increasingly trapped.

Running at just 100 minutes, the play takes too long to get us to care for these two characters.

But as the plot finally thickens and both reveal their much more interesting selves, we finally get involved – and increasingly tense – as dawn breaks and we can hear the demolition team arriving with the crane and the wrecking ball to raze the building. Time is running out.

To divulge more would be unfair. Barcelona is not perfect: There's too much telling and too little showing. But it turns into a play about learning to live again when you think it's all over.

Linton draws a wonderfully precise performance from Collins, who begins as a stereotype (Collins in her comic element, as a vacuous blonde with verbal diarrhoea), but gradually finds stillness, a quiet intensity and hidden depths... to the surprise of her character and the audience.

 A glittering stage career beckons.