Driving the bus… Laughing Boy, Jermyn Street Theatre

This adaptation will bring what should be a national scandal to new audiences. I look forward to the laughter, the love and the sheer brilliance it will encapsulate, while packing a mighty punch.

Professor Sara Ryan

Some plays you watch with a kind of detached engagement, invested in the characters and plot but letting your admiration for the skill and performance professionalism. Others, far rarer, hit home in deeply personal ways and, like this one, make you tear up with pride for the actors on stage and in sympathy with the people they represent.

Connor Sparrowhawk was present throughout Stephen Unwin’s extraordinary transfer to stage of the book Justice for Laughing Boy written by Connor’s mother, Professor Sara Ryan, as was his entire family, including his beloved Mum. They were seen in projections on a large white background, Connor at an early birthday party, the family seen together after their triumph in the courts and in snippets of media appearances as they fought for justice… Connor’s funeral.

Connor was killed by the negligence of Southern Health at Slade House, an Assessment and Treatment Unit (ATU) in Oxford who had not correctly marked his epilepsy and, consequently, left him alone having a bath in a locked room where he had a seizure and subsequently drowned. Southern was fined £2 million in 2018 for "serious systematic" management failings after Connor’s death and the resultant campaign for justice which led to deeper investigations such as the extensive Mazars report for NHS England. This looked at all 10,306 deaths at the trust between April 2011 and March 2015 - 1,454 of these deaths were unexpected, and only 195 were treated as a serious enough to require investigation. Almost no cases involving special needs patients were investigated.

Forbes Masson, Charlie Ives, Alfie Friedman, Daniel Rainford and Janie Dee photos by Alex Brenner

There is obviously a huge amount of detail in this case and intense emotional weight yet Stephen Unwin’s play and his magnificent cast, take us through it in a spirited, informative and life-affirming way. It’s presented as the family were talking directly to the audience which is a bold and difficult task which has the affect of demolishing that fourth wall as well as uniting the players in a way that is familial; they’re so at ease with each other, improvising their way past the odd verbal fumble as families do, laughing and crying together in ways that eventually break the viewer’s heart.

Leading is Janie Dee as Professor Sara Ryan who thoroughly convinces with her drive and her hurt, a mother still devastated by the grief of her child’s untimely and unnecessary passing who galvanizes all in the pursuit of the truth. Sara as with my wife, and so many of the mothers of our group of autistic families, lets nothing go and having fought for ever inch of provision over her child’s life, carries on fighting for him after his death. As one of the parents of a severely autistic boy we know said, people and services come and go on your journey to look after your child but you have to keep driving the bus*.

Sara is a relentless bus driver and as we see the back projection of Oxford High Street on their journeys up to Headington, you know that the bus-obsessed Connor would just love this analogy. Connor here is played so well by Alfie Friedman and I say that as someone who recognises so many of the aspects of ASD. My son is more into tube trains and Daleks but their joy in the things they love is unbounded. David has a different profile, all autistic people are unique, as you and I, but he too was sectioned and taken into an NHS unit in London – one of the lowest points of my life. But we were lucky.

Janie Dee, Molly Osborne, Forbes Masson, Alfie Friedman, Charlie Ives, Daniel Rainford and Lee Braithwaite. Young Connor on the screen... Photo by Alex Brenner

Forbes Mason plays Rich, Sara’s partner and father of the group so many families with special needs struggle to stay united but Rich is a constant source of support and humour. Connor’s siblings are played by Lee Braithwaite (Owen), Molly Osborne (Rosie), Charlie Ives (Will) and Daniel Rainford (Tom) – four young actors who also pick up a remarkable number of other roles from the staff at the Unit, senior figures of Southern, or rather “Slovern” as Sara renames them, barristers, friends and lawyers. It’s a fast-moving narrative and mind-boggling in terms of the changes in character but behind these characters lie the gang’s main role as the family and, this adds the intimacy and the straight talking.

The events start with “Before” in the build up to Connors death, then After and the steps along the way to the truth finally being established. We see much of the young man’s character and this is such an affectionate and loved person, it is overwhelming when we see the actual Connor on screen. As a remembrance and recognition of this person it is poignant enough yet, as Sara says, it is not just for Connor, the fight must continue, parents must continue to push for the best provision and make governments and the powers that be respond.

The sections showing the incredible support for Connor and his family online are also very powerful: there is a community of carers, of the sympathetic and allies from all quarters who recognised the nature of the tragedy and the type of cover up we’ve seen many times in this country. Connors death is far from a one off and when a group of fellow victims was projected on screen you could sense the anger and dismay in the audience. 

Lee Braithwaite, Forbes Masson, Janie Dee, Molly Osborne and Daniel Rainford. Photo Alex Brenner

And, as the current government fails to make up the overall funding gap over the 14 years since they introduced Austerity, the risks to other patients are only growing.

The friends I mentioned above have a son is a one in a million with Childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD) and has resided in units like Slade in which there have been deaths and abuse. They are currently involved in an investigation of another unit, owned by private equity, and their story will soon be national news via Channel 4. Who decided that our children should be grounds for anyone making profit? It’s an extension of the neglect and callous attitudes that have seen the growth of modern poorhouses for those with special needs who, like Connor, and our son, struggle to find their way after they pass out of the educational system into adult care.

When someone like Connor turns eighteen. There’s all this jargon. People “transition to adult services”. Then they face “dropping off the cliff edge…” … and suddenly everything changes. 

I Thank You Theatre Rating: ***** One of the most important plays you will see all year. This is the story of one family tragedy which must help to improve provision for some of the most vulnerable families in Britain: this is a human right and also underpins the ability for those families to contribute to our national wellbeing. A magnificent cast who fully demonstrate the solidarity and singularity of purpose we now need!

In addition to Stephen Unwin’s firm handed grip on the narrative the design of Simon Higlett also deserves mention, enabling the stage to shift from live performance to projected images, allowing “reality” to intrude without knocking the play off-course. Props too for Ben Omerod’s lighting design, Holly Khan’s sound design, Matt Powell’s video design and Anna Wood’s SFX design. A formidable team all round.

What I found most moving though was the presentation of Connor… loved and loving, an innocent but a fully rounded human being who should have been protected, he should have been given a chance… It’s up to us now, we all need to drive the bus!

Laughing Boy runs at the Jermyn Street Theatre until 25 May before moving out on 4 to 8 June to Theatre Royal Bath – full details are on the JST website.

Connor Sparrowhawk

I saw the light… The Light House, Park Theatre

The World is full of broken things. Broken clouds, breaking waves… broken hearts. 

Oh, my heart… I’ve just left the Park Theatre and there's so much warmth on the streets. It's a feeling of connection on so much common ground after Alys Williams’ stunningly engaging performance of her own play. These words are inadequate to explain the contact we have just established and it is not just her ideas and performance but her ability to touch her audience in addressing the truth of the situation she describes; first through analogy and then through a narrative familiar to so many who have experience of living with mental ill-health.

Throughout, Alys mixes humour - this is a very funny play - and avoids direct descriptions that might only diminish a subject over-flowing with categorical thoughts… depression, suicidal ideation, therapy, psychiatry, chemistry… we’ve all got a take on this but we all have to take a breath and listen to new stories and new experiences as, like every lighthouse, the lights within those suffering are unique and amplified in different ways.

How many people do we know who have been depressed, tried to take their own lives, succeeded…? This is so painful we cannot look directly into the light. Instead, Alys takes us on her personal journey and, buyer beware, physically involves a number of the audience. As she says from the start, we get so stuck doing life by ourselves, “but maybe, just for an hour, we can do it together?”

And as one we proceed as two audience members are asked to echo “Man overboard!” as Alys explains the protocol employed at sea when someone falls into the waves. Another blows a whistle following Alys’ lead and she then throws an imaginary life belt over our heads, calls the captain and throws lights into the water whilst keeping her finger pointed as near as possible at the body bobbing in the waves.

Alys Williams, all photographs from Ant Robling

It's vital we remember this example as Alys slowly unfolds her own story about falling in love with a friend, Nathan, someone she met again when studying in Paris and then when she visited him in Dublin, the two venturing out to Dún Laoghaire to the West lighthouse in the harbour for ice cream.

Nathan is initially played by a table lamp but then by an audience member and I have to say that everyone of us called onto the stage is caught up in Alys’ world and we feel no fear, even when, called out as her father I have to pretend to row next to her, her sister and mother and sing Row Row Row Your Boat… this is some kind of witchcraft or Derren Brown levels of suggestibility, as I haven’t sung in front of an audience this big since the school choir.

But that’s what Alys is capable of – first play, first solo performances… one to keep an eye on for certain!

But it’s the way she deals with Nathan’s subsequent mental health issues that are the most beguiling. His light dimmed as the table light, she explains the difficulties in finding the right help in Ireland, his unpredictable swings and the time when he stood on a bridge during the night and almost left… What stopped him she asks, the fear of dying and his feelings for her but, as she says, he cannot live for her alone; there needs to be a firmer foundation. 

What there needs to be is a protocol, something we can all follow to give each other the strength to find and rescue the man overboard. By the end we are illuminated with the passion Alys has imbued in her words and the sense of the love that drove her onwards. It is a truly remarkable play that leaves you dizzy a little breathless and smiling your idiot happy smile all the train home.

Alys at sea. Photo Ant Robling

IThankYou Rating: Are you kidding, *****!

Andrea Heaton directs superbly and creates a blazing fire in the Park 90’s discrete space aided by Matthew Carnazza’s spot-on lighting design. Movement direction from Maya Carroll and Rod Dixon is also key to allowing Alys to command and let our imaginations fill the space whilst we get some Leonard Cohen, a sunny surprise Cliff Richard as well as a haunting but unknown to me, Our Song.

Nothing is overplayed and Alys’ restrain makes this pitch perfect play fulfil the publicity promise of being “a love letter to life”. It is also a reminder of just how potent theatre can be and how it can move us even on a rainy evening in Finsbury Park… for those are exactly the moments when we need to be part of a crowd, all striving to understand and play their part, literally in my case… 

Oh, please go and see this one while you can! 

The Light House plays at the Park Theatre until 13^th April and details/tickets are available via their site here.­­­

Last word to Alys: “Our society is getting so much better at talking about mental health and suicide but I still don’t think we hear many stories about the care involved or the possibility of recovery. I think a lot of people have stories like ours, where someone has ‘gone to the brink’ as it were but found their way back into the light, perhaps over and over again through the years. I wanted to tell that story, to insist upon hope. In the end, that’s all hope is.”

Or, as the poet Pete Wylie said: “You’ve got to hope for the best and that’s the best you can hope for.” 

Together, we make that hope and as a group we sustain it.

London, is the place for me? The Lonely Londoners, Jermyn Street Theatre

There is a rage in this play but also the sweetest feelings of love and resilience as the characters pull together through the toughest of circumstances, not just their poverty, the bewilderment and aggression of their new British neighbours but an attack on their identity and their very existence. “Go home…” they would if they could but their one-way trip just has to work.

Watching the BFI’s recent documentary on Cymande, a ground-breaking band who found success in the US but not at home in the United Kingdom of the seventies when they too were told to go home by some. Where to, Brixton, South Norwood? As with the characters in this play, Cymande were part of the Windrush generation, the sons of the kind of men represented in Roy Williams stunning adaptation of Sam Selvon’s book, The Lonely Londoners first published in 1956. Selvon was born in Trinidad and also co-wrote the film Pressure (1976) * with director Horace Ové about the second generation of Windrush immigrants and their experience in the hostile Seventies. 

Roy Williams uses an audacious mix of theatre – songs sung by the sublime Aimee Powell who also dances and acts, along with moments when the whole troupe are choreographed in ways that carry such emotional force in the JST’s discrete and intensely focused performance area. Props to the movement direction of Nevena Stojkov whose work leaves you breathless and gives you pause to really think beyond the words we hear. This injustice is far from over and as the Right attempts to reinvent “racism” as the act of merely pointing out factual inequality, we shouldn’t ever take our privilege for granted nor other’s experience both in peacetime and in war.

You should have been here in fifty-two. London was so cold. It got so bad here, when you try and speak, the words freeze as they come out of your mouth and you have to melt it to hear the talk. 

Gamba Cole. All photos by Alex Brenner!

Ebenezer Bamgboye directs a potent cast with Gamba Cole just a powerhouse as central figure Moses who acts as a mentor to many new arrivals “cos only I know which of London where dem slam doors in your face, and which ones let us in.” As he says, he’s hardly living the dream himself but at least he knows how to pronounce the street names unlike his pal Big City (Gilbert Kyem Jnr who dwarfs the rest of the cast) who has his own way of pronouncing things leading to much frustrated hilarity. 

The dream they are living is a nightmare of loneliness, unemployment and forced pigeon eating, renting poor rooms in Bayswater and often at the mercy of the minority of landlords who will offer them accommodation; “no blacks, no Irish, no dogs…” is contested but there were plenty of “no coloureds”, “no West Indians” notices put up for people who were encouraged to the UK by a government in search of cheap labour to aid the post-war recovery.

Tobi Bakare

But there are always punctuations of humour, the comforts of friends and family even as relationships and personalities are stretched to the limit. Tobi Bakare is superb as Lewis who, having fibbed about earning five pounds a week, invited his wife Agnes (Shannon Hayes) to join him only for his domineering mother, Tanty (Carol Moses) to come as well. They are in a situation where her call for him to be a man only makes matters worse as he has already tried everything he could. Desperate, he starts to doubt his wife’s faithfulness, Agnes is indeed formidable, a trained nurse and an intelligent woman who easily bests a grocer who tries to give her over-ripe fruit, disarming him with charm and resolution, but she is also resolutely steadfast. Lewis cannot cope with his disappointment of both these women and he turns to drink.

I tell you Galahad, this London man! The way it gets inside of you.

Fresh over from Trinidad is Henry ‘Sir Galahad’ Oliver (Romario Simpson) who comes to Moses for help even as he is experiencing the humiliations that the others know all too well. He is smart and cocky, thinking he can simply transpose his natural assets to this new, wet, grey environment. As he is gradually worn down by the obstacles of Britain, we catch glimpses of what also happened to Moses, his doomed love affair back home with Christina (Aimee Powell) and the son he can never see but one he drafts letters to every day.

Gilbert Kyem Jnr, Gamba Cole, Romario Simpson, Carol Moses, Tobi Bakare, Aimee Powell and Shannon Hayes. 

Galahad keeps on getting into fights with Teddy Boys as he tries to live his life, he grabs a knife from the wall and we fear for the direction he might take as his self-respect refuses to yield. Big City takes a gun and seems intent on following a life of crime as the prospect of a few hundred pounds from a post office robbery with two white crooks draws him in… 

The temptations of lawlessness, violence and self-medication are all that is left to men who are outcast, under-employed and left with only transactional relationships with sex workers to bring them fleeting compassion. And yet… they have each other, there are plentiful pigeons and they may well continue to fight, especially in this city which can indeed get under the skin. By the end of the play, we feel a closeness that you don’t always find in the theatre; this play draws you to the characters in rare and compelling ways. We root for them, we wish them the best. We look to ourselves.

Shannon Hayes and Carol Moses

IThankYou Theatre verdict: ***** This is an extraordinary play with Williams remixing Selvon’s story to create a compelling slice of lives that are still being lived in London and elsewhere. Its universal humanity stirs and shakes us from complacency and the only thing left is kindness and understanding. Go see it!

 The cast is such a solid team in this play and there’s no flicker out of character even as they sit and wait for their lines. The staging is also exemplary with design from Laura Ann Price, costumes by Anett Black, lighting from Elliot Griggs and immersive sound design from Tony Gayle. The whole space is switched on as the play runs as the JST transforms back to the 1950s, taking its audience with it! Outstanding! 

Lonely Londoners plays until 6^th April and I urge you to take a trip to Piccadilly whilst there are still tickets available. Details on the JST website.

*Pressure was recently restored and re-released by the BFI; you can find it on the BFI Player here.

Song... 

... and Dance!

Great lighting and photos by Alex Brenner

Flour power… Self-Raising, Soho Theatre

They should make you sign an NDA before entering the Soho Theatre to watch this play. The questions of who dunnit, what it was and when it happened are all vital to the narrative hold of Jenny Sealey’s one-woman-one-‘terp-one-son-play that it would be a crime to report them. It’s out duty as an audience to make sure Jenny can tell her secrets and in her way: it’s one of the most intricate and, yes, engaging plays I’ve seen for some time and it’s already my feelgood hit of 2024!

Jenny begins by removing the fourth wall and she will gradually break down every barrier to the truth between the audience and herself. She introduces herself and explains that she is deaf then Jeni Draper, her ‘terp or interpreter, whose job it is to be Jenny, at least in terms of sign language, then we get to meet her son Jonah – who, like Jenny’s father, is a photographer and a smart one at that, providing captioning and video design along with witty audio contributions, like mother like son.

Jenny is an award -winning Artistic Director of the disabled-led theatre company, Graeae, and just when you might expect this play to be about her condition you are swiftly disabused. Jenny went deaf aged seven after an accident playing with a pal, but she explains how her mother, especially decided to bring her up “hearing” so much so that she can “pass” for hearing even though she is fully at terms with what must once have been a traumatic experience. Such is Jenny’s obvious sense of character and resolution: but let nothing detract from the exceptional job she has done presenting a story with a completely different focus from her lived experience. Self-Raising is about family and it's about truth and lies that we all have, and which we hold tightly to ourselves pretty much like bags of flour.

Jeni Draper and Jenny Sealey. All photos by Tiu Makkonen

Yes, what exactly is it about the flour, and why does it have to be self-raising? The answers will come, but only when Jenny is ready, firstly she explains how her play was going to be about Anne Fine’s schoolbook Flour Babies… The story concerns a class of “underachievers” who are given bags of flour which they have to carry for three weeks and treat like babies. It’s providing a lesson in responsibility and also encouraging pupils to think about the role of their parents. As she explains, Jenny hands out bags of flour to members of the audience in front rows, each one has a name and like schoolchildren we’re not entirely sure why.

The original plan was abandoned when certain family secrets came to light in ways that meant Jenny had to write her way through it and as we see, perform her explanation. It’s bold and it’s brave and utterly compelling as she and her ‘terp and her son on AV, take us through the family history, from Jenny’s growing up in Nottingham to her father Bob’s photographic company, Tempest Photography – still a going concern by the way – which is appropriately the name of Jenny’s favourite Shakespeare.

The set doubles as a storage area – for flower, family photos and memorabilia – and a dark room in which some of the blackest secrets can, literally, be exposed. As Jenny talks us through her parents, her sisters and her friends, their pictures appear on the screen above where she attaches them – each one with commentary from Jenny and or Jonah and, of course Jeni.

Sealey strikes an extraordinary intimacy with her audience through her open-hearted discourse and unaffected stage presence. It’s easy to forget that this is her life or that she is acting… fore by the end you feel she has taken us into her confidence and also soften the blows her revelations might otherwise cause. Sealey on stage creates a safe space throughout the auditorium even if for the first few rows at least, there’s the possibility you may have to hold a bag of flour for the duration.

Jenny Sealey holds the audience in her hands. Photo by Tiu Makkonen

IThankYou Theatre rating: ***** A reversed engineered delight, Jenny Sealey has worked backward from a series of explosive and emotional revelations to create a linear masterpiece that pulls you into the most honest and warm-hearted description of "family" you'll find on any stage in London. Wholeheartedly recommended!

Written by Sealey with Mike Kenny and tightly directed by Lee Lyford Self-Raising is absolutely the Theatre of Truth and Trust, it’s an uplifting cathartic experience that makes us question why we keep secrets and which ones to share with our nearest and dearest.

The Self-Raising tour continues across the UK until the end of March and you should book as soon as possible using the links below:

6 – 17 February, London Soho Theatre                                                                  

20 – 21 February, Scarborough, Stephen Joseph Theatre                                

22 – 23 February, Liverpool Everyman                                                       

29 February – 1 March, Derby Theatre                        

4 – 5 March, Newcastle Live Theatre                              

7 – 9 March, Colchester Mercury Theatre                                  

12 – 13 March, Warwick Arts Centre                            

14 March, Nottingham Playhouse                                                

19 – 20 March, Bristol Tobacco Factory                                

22 – 24 March, Leeds Playhouse                

Details of the Graeae Theatre Company are available on their website.

Anthem for doomed youth? Don’t Destroy Me, Arcola Theatre

Eddie Boyce and Nell Williams

All children whose parents have been busted up by war – never are the same. We’re a special breed.

Offie Award winning Two’s Company are known for restaging almost forgotten plays and in this case have revived Don’t Destroy Me by pioneering Jewish writer Michael Hastings written and first performed in 1956 and steeped in the post-war Jewish experience in ways that, sadly remain ever pertinent across the divides of faith and secular politics. This is the first time the play has been staged since.

One of the characters, a 17-year-old woman called Suki (Nell Williams, part of a very strong and experienced cast) keeps on insisting that there is a world outside the windows of the claustrophobic Brixton apartment block where the actions take place but you’d barely know it such is the pressure the older generations apply to their children and to each other. 

Almost everyone is still traumatised by the war a decade after it was finished and the full truth of its atrocities became known. Some bury themselves in routine or trust in the old faith whilst some self-medicate with excessive alcohol and there are those who have simply lost their minds. Troubled by his own upbringing and post-war disappointments, Hastings, was just 18 at the time he wrote this play, and, as William Burrows once said, tried to write himself out of it… There are no easy answers: it is a fiercely honest play and one that refuses to offer the audience the false comforts of a simple resolution.

Paul Rider, photo from Phil Gammon

Given the age of the playwright, it’s entirely fitting that young Eddie Boyce, makes their professional stage debut as Hastings Sammy and what a splendid job he makes of it too. Sammy is 15 and returning to his father Leo (Paul Rider) after growing up in Croydon with his aunt. Leo lives unhappily married to Shani (Natalie Barclay) who is just 29 (or possibly 31) and a generation younger. She married Leo out of convenience, a means to escape Hungary after the war whilst Leo wanted a “mother” for his son after his mother died. The two live in unhappy disharmony, sniping at each other as she relishes her leisure time and he drinks to forget the daytime and the disasters of the past.

But they are just two of the inmates in this odd tenement with a mentally disturbed mother, Mrs Pond (Alix Dunmore) living in the top flat with her daughter Suki with the two almost incapable of connecting. Mrs Pond lost her husband or lover near the end of the War and as her exasperated landlady and former best friend Mrs Miller (Sue Kelvin) says, words just won’t stick in her head and no conversation is ever run to neurotypical rules as Mrs Pond’s mind moves in and out of focus.

Completing the household is George (Timothy O’Hara) a happy-go-lucky bookie who is more than happy to make the most of his luck with Shani. He’s forever popping into his neighbour’s flat much to Leo’s chagrin who shoos him off and then goes for a "walk", straight to the pub.

Into this mix is added young Sammy whose addition to the family is quickly problematic as Leo cannot seem to communicate with him especially over his choice of boisterous jazz records. Shani has the opposite issue as, far nearer Sammi’s age but still a half-generation distant, she over communicates and smothers him with advice and good intentions. Trying to find his way Sammi asks for the local Rabbi (Nicholas Day) to visit and them events really do intensify as preparations are made, arguments are had and tea, cake and sandwiches prepared… The problem for Sammi – and Suki – is if the grown-ups are not only stuck in the past but unwilling to move on, what future can there be for them?

Eddie Boyce and Nicholas Day All shots by Phil Gammon. 

IThankYou Theatre Rating: ****

This is an outstanding debut play from Hastings and if it drifts from time to time over the two hours running time is swiftly gets back on track. As the youngest and possibly angriest of the emerging Angry Young Men – John Osborne was 27 at this point – the playwright has a lot of anger to express and is forcefully on point for the inability to escape the past, consolidate the now and work out a future that isn’t just a tribute act for the societal mores of a generation subsumed in conflict and loss.

Tricia Thorns directs with a forensic eye for period sensibilities and choreographs her players so well in the playing area created by Alex Marker’s inventive set design: they not only fit the interior of a Victorian townhouse into the Arcola stage, but make us all feel apart of it, almost embarrassed by the family truths and discomforts played out closely in front of us. 

Eddie Boyce is extraordinary in this position and it’s not understatement to say that he does not look out of place in this highly skilled and forceful set of players!

Don’t Destroy Me runs at the Arcola until 3rd February and I’d recommend you check out their website immediately for tickets and more information.

Eddie Boyce, Timothy O'Hara and Nathalie Barclay. Shot, Phil Gammon.

Alix Dunmore and Sue Kelvin. Photo Phil Gammon.

Childhood’s end… The Good John Proctor, Jermyn Street Theatre

I never thought you but a good man, John, only somewhat bewildered…

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

‘Tis the season for hunting witches, when is it ever not? Evil is everywhere, as the young women featured in Talene Monahon’s play keep on repeating and yet here it’s an obscure thing only dimly conceived in the minds of children in what amounts to a prequel to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Monahon’s script cleverly avoids all obvious allusions with only passing references made to modern witchery made in a discourse conducted in the modern idioms of a high school friends.

The characters are some of the women who make the fateful accusations in Miller’s play and they have been taken back to the actuality of their youth, Abigail Williams in The Crucible is 17 but here she’s played as 12 by the excellent Anna Fordham and her cousin and best friend Betty Parris, played with child-like nuance by Sabrina Wu, is just nine. This is the age they were when in 1692 they made their accusations against over two dozen of their fellow villagers in Salem including the good John Proctor.

The story takes place largely in the year before the witch trials and begins in the bedroom of the cousins as Betty relates a dream she’s had about flying through the woods, “like an owl” an exhilarating dream of freedom that her cousin advises her not to relate. Keeping a secret is difficult for a nine-year-old but Abigail knows already that accusations of witchcraft are all to easily made.

Sabrina Wu and Anna Fordham - all photographs by Jack Sain

Their friend Mercy Lewis (the vibrant Amber Sylvia Edwards) is 14 and knows all about the world including the fact that it is full of evil and, seemingly, large numbers of her fellow citizens are in congress with The Devil even though they still go to church the next day as if the rather florid descriptions of Old Nick worship she presents should leave them exhausted. Where has she learned all these lurid rumours? The play seems in no doubt about the corruption of these innocents. 

Abigail gets a job with the Proctor family much to her cousin’s despair - why are all the people we love dead or working? – and she becomes dazzled by her employer, as good a man as she has ever met. But her childish view of his benevolence soon gives us hints of a darker relationship that adds unwelcome depth to the evils of the original play. She has a child’s conception even of this though and either cannot nor will not express her treatment in direct terms. This is the skill of the playwright; understatements serve to highlight the sins of this new world were none stay innocent for long.

Sabrina Wu and Amber Sylvia Edwards, photo by Jack Sain

A new party arrives from Maine, and another without living parents – only Betty’s remain alive or present – Mary Warren (Lydia Larson) who at 18 has seen more of life as can be quickly seen. Lydia Larson is quite remarkable as the sensitive Mary giving the most febrile of performances, her eyes and face alive with meaning and the overwhelming wonder her character finds in the world in general and the woods in particular. Mary has fits when her imagination runs too wild but Lydia presents this lightning potential at all points, as thoughts flicker across her face in contrapuntal flow to her dialogue.

This is one of the wonders of the Jermyn Street Theatre, even with my eyesight you can see the performers at work and this breaks down the barriers you might find up in the expensive Gods of the West End giants round the corner. 

So, it is we see in close quarter how the girls’ exploitation and confusion leads to their seeking even the most outlandish explanations for their helplessness: what good is rationality when you are orphaned and abused. But the play lets us make our own minds up and doesn’t proscribe specific causality just the probabilities of society’s most vulnerable. The evil is throughout society and it is other people.

Anna Ryder's direction allows her performers free rein even as they are tightly choreographed across every inch of the stage.  The soundscaping from Bella Kear has a narrative atmosphere all its own and the lighting design from Laura Howard is superb transforming the JST’s discrete performance space from puritan loft to the deep disorientation of the woods and a quite astonishing moment when the focus shifts from stage to stalls.

Lydia Larson, detail from photo by Jack Sain

IThankYou Theatre Rating: ****

 This is a magical-realist, visceral delight that, literally, turns the spotlight on the audience in terms of our judgement and responsibility to these characters and young people like them. Who makes the “witches”, well, we do, and people very much like us if we’re not very careful. 

The play is being staged as part of the Jermyn Street Theatre’s Footprints Festival and runs from 10^th – 27th January, so I suggest you get your booking in quick. 

Full details of tickets and the rest of the Footprints productions are on the JST website.

I actually can’t believe how wicked this town has become.

Incidentally, my favourite performance of John Proctor came from Tom Wilkinson at the National Theatre in 1990. He was a powerful presence on stage and on screen and it is him I always think of when I think of The Crucible. RIP.

Circle of lives... The Arc: A Trilogy of New Jewish Plays, Soho Theatre

 

There are as many different ways to be Jewish as there are Jews in the world, and all of us have myriad stories to tell and ways of telling them. The Arc director, Kayla Feldman

On my way up the stairs in the Soho Theatre there’s a sign explaining that on this site stood the West End Great Synagogue from 1880 to 1996, “a sanctuary of friendship” and so there could be few better locations to present this world premiere of short plays by three of the UK’s leading Jewish playwrights exploring the great subjects from birth, marriage to death. No lack of ambition there then!

What does it mean to be of Jewish heritage in modern Britain? Is there a kind of complacent boredom in some quarters, as David Baddiel has said, that leads to an unconscious racism or is it more the failure of imagination and empathy as we may fall victim to categorical thinking and the idea of “sides” with collective values and purpose. Talking of which, what can I bring to the topic as a lapsed Methodist of Irish Catholic descent? Well, belief and heritage are one thing, but human experience is another and these three short plays are full to the brim with humanity and, whilst there are surely some that flew over my head, there are enough knowing winks to hit home.

As one of the young couple in the second play, literally a recurring nightmare of a first date going wrong time after time, asks why a shared genetic heritage makes them anymore likely to connect with the other then pointing out that everyone has a shared genetic heritage. It’s a minefield of course, but there’s also many centuries of cultural nurture versus nature and that’s what brings us together and divides us. These two are non-observant and when God/a man called Godfrey intervenes, with a clap of possibly coincidental thunder, they’re brought together by their differences. This is as it should be.

Caroline Gruber and Dorothea Myer-Bennett (all shots Danny With a Camera)

It all begins with Amy Rosenthal’s Birth, which is a skilful weaving together of a fiftieth wedding anniversary and unintended consequences of that wedding arriving in the form of Naomi (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) who may or may not have been induced so that over-worked gynaecologist Michael (Nigel Planer) could take a week off to honeymoon in Greece with his new bride, Linda (Caroline Gruber).

Naomi arrives from Clapham via a replacement bus service and Michael, unable to recall her mother, suggests she heads straight back. There’s something of The Inspector Calls about the visit as Naomi gradually reveals how therapy has made her feel somehow incomplete and unready for the world even at fifty yet she comes not to point the finger or commence legal action, her motivations are altogether subtler.

Michael is confounded by the younger generation’s need to self-examine, his “… it’s not as if you’ve got numbers on your arm…” feeling like a gut punch even said in jest by one of a different generation. The search for meaning transcends history and, just like the crossword he’s struggling with, can sometimes sneak up on you when you’re unprepared.

Rosenthal’s aim is to write joyful, punchy, unexpected plays that look unflinchingly at the Jewish experience but always through a lens of humour and hope - which I think is how we survive. She certainly succeeds here and is not alone.

Abigail Weinstock and Sam Thorpe-Spinks

Alexis Zegerman’s Marriage is next and begins with a flash of lightning as a young couple start and re-start their first date. Adrian (Sam Thorpe-Spinks) is a very nervy podiatrist from Edgeware who can’t help but say the wrong things to the sharper-edged Eva (Abigail Weinstock) including a schoolboy error about the causes of his RSI. After a number of false starts – would you Adrian an’ Eve it? – they settle into a stuttering pattern covering their motivations and cultural references, with Adrian’s Proust joke – “I thought you liked reading…” – rebounding as Eve slapping him round and over the head with acute Proustian observations.

An older man (Mr Planer again) has joined them in the restaurant and smiles at their struggle before finally revealing himself as the aforementioned God/Godfrey… he’s either the deity or finely tuned with the establishment’s faulty electrics but his intervention gives them something to react against and they break their silence. It’s deftly handled and very funny, “Jesus Christ!” says an exasperated Adrian, don’t get me started replies God or is it God-free?

Abigail Weinstock, Dan Wolff and Adrian Schiller

Ryan Craig’s Death is the final act and concerns the funeral of Golda Meir, a restless hamster who travelled far and who appears to die twice rather than the Ukrainian-born former prime minister of Israel. As with the first play’s “numbers” reference this is a joke only someone from the culture could make and, without question, humour is indeed part of our survival mechanism and a way of bringing people together around the commonality of a shared laugh.

Death is more concerned with other, more formalistic rituals as siblings Adam (Dan Wolff) and Leah (Abigail Weinstock) discuss their aunt’s funeral arrangements as per her wishes, even though she is only 76 and in good health. Leah is the elder and is trying to coach the reluctant Adam to follow instructions, he has the air of a man undermined by the responsibility of life and expectation overshadowed by his sister and their highly successful father Dan (Adrian Schiller).

We soon discover Adam’s struggle with grief for the passing of Golda, the rodent being a key connection with his daughter now living with his ex-wife. Adam has bought a small coffin although he hasn’t formalised plans yet and Golda’s body lies in state inside a supermarket plastic bag… as with the statements of the first play, he isn’t “ready”, not for any of it but perhaps there’s room for tradition still.

We’re played out by Carol King’s I Feel the Earth Move… a suitably upbeat needle-drop and one from a songwriter who always captures the broader human connections in her music. Carol is as defined by her creativity as her New York Jewish background yet the two are inseparable.

IThankYou Theatre Rating: **** The Arc is a breath of theatrical fresh air that entertains as well as it informs. Impeccably staged and directed by Kayla Feldman its cast effortlessly energised by the rich subject matter on display, I want more!

The Arc plays until Saturday 26th August 2023 so get in quick, ticket details are available from the Soho Theatre box office or via their website here.

Emanate Productions was founded in 2021, and the company focuses on nurturing talent in emerging and established artists of Jewish heritage, platforming urgent, exciting and passionate stories with an integral Jewish soul. The Arc is produced by the company’s Co-Artistic Directors, Sam Thorpe-Spinks and Dan Wolff along with Associate Producer Tanya Truman.