Deborah Freeman’s four-hander play is an interesting exploration of what it means to be Jewish or Christian in 21st Century Britain and it sits quite happily in the White Bear’s intimate square space with audience on two sides.

Jenny (Sophie McMahon) has come home for Seder and it’s the first time she’s seen her mother (Mary Tillett) for several years. Her announcement that she’s become a Christian is a bombshell.  Her mother Louise, it transpires, has very little doctrinal belief although she’s a political supporter of her fellow Jews and enjoys the traditional celebrations. Her daughter’s heartfelt, Christian evangelism and enthusiasm for forgiveness is therefore hard to take.

Next door is the non-Jewish Julia (Kathryn Worth) who doesn’t believe in anything. She’s a single mother and her son Ian (James Duddy). Ian and Jenny have been friends since infancy and the relationship shows signs of developing into something else – until Ian drops his own bombshell and the dynamic shifts.

And we’re left pondering the difference between cultural alignment and religious conviction especially when two young people want, in the opinion of their parents “to put the clock back a hundred years”. Meanwhile, these same young people argue that we live in “a world where we’re all mixed up” which means there’s no need for all this friction.

So it’s a play of ideas. And for the most part it takes the audience along with it without too much didactic information sharing. In places the plot creaks with unanswered questions though. What exactly did Ian do in his teens to worry his mother so much? Louise’s job is a bit vague too. She gives every sign that she’s a teacher and then announces she’s a social worker. And although Jenny’s father is clearly around he is mentioned oddly little. There are a couple of soliloquies which seem jarringly false too.

Possibly because there were press night nerves the first act was a bit wooden and often unconvincingly acted. It warmed up after the interval, however, when we see real distress and tension and there’s a fine scene with Jenny and Ian in which she finally accepts that her life isn’t going to be quite what she’s hoped.

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  All photos: Lidia Crisafulli

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We tend to associate Alan Ayckbourn with comedy but, as every reader of Sardines knows, his work is much more nuanced than that. Woman in Mind, which he wrote in 1985, as a young playwright, is actually a searing tragedy whose many comic moments only highlight the plight of the central character.

Susan (Jenna Russell) is a middle class, middle-aged vicar’s wife losing her mind. Perhaps it’s the result of a knock on the head. Or it may be a severe menopause or early onset Alzheimer’s. The reason doesn’t matter much. What we’re watching is a mind being taken over by dementia.

Her delusions take the form of re-enactions of the life she, at some level, wishes she’d had: a grand country home, maybe even an estate, a loving daughter (Flora Higgins) a dishy very caring husband (Marc Elliott), a dashing younger brother (Orlando James) and a glittering career in her own right.

What she actually has – and Mark Henderson’s lighting and Simon Barker’s video design complete with flying birds make us acutely aware of the difference – is an overbearing, boorish, boring, bossy sexless husband (Nigel Lindsay in excellent form) and a small garden. Their son Rick (Will Attenborough) has attached himself to a silent sect in Hemel Hempstead but comes home and upsets his mother still further during the course of the play.

Russell finds a lot of eloquent silence as Susan gazing into the distance, clearly desperately unhappy and barking cynical remarks at those around her – between her delusional episodes. It’s a challenging but very meaty role and Russell is good at switching mood as suddenly she sees her other life or aspects of it. Her final scenes when, soaked to the skin by rain, she falls apart completely – and, in a bizarre muddled-mind sequence – conjures up entwined, distorted versions of both her lives are almost unbearably moving. Anyone who has lived with loss of mind at close quarters, as I have, will identify with the horror of watching someone disappear into a world of their own while onlookers, rooted in their own version of reality, have no idea what is going on.

Matthew Cottle turns in a fine performance as Bill, the kindly but slightly dotty local doctor who tries to help Susan but is out of his depth. And there’s lovely work from Stephanie Jacob as the lumpy sister-in-law galumphing round the stage and producing inedible food and undrinkable beverages.

Yes, this is a production which will make you laugh. A lot. It is also likely to make you cry.

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  All photos: Johan Persson

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Structured episodically like a sharply written TV sit com, Eric Henry Sanders’  four-hander is a witty exploration of 30-something first pregnancy.

Kate (Christie Meyer) wins a horse race bet which brings her to the realisation that she would like a baby with her somewhat reluctant husband of twelve years, Guy (Cory English). Quite soon a pregnancy starts and brings with it a great deal of pretty plausible worry, angst and agonising. Meanwhile their friends Hugh (Lance C Fuller) and Zoe (Maria Teresa Creasey), who also happens to be Kate’s boss, have a two year old child, Lola, who horrifies, intrigues and fascinates Kate and Guy. Horse racing runs thematically through the play but doesn’t add much.

There are some good scenes, mostly duologues, all of them funny as well as occasionally poignant. Kate and Zoe assembling a to-do/to-buy list for Kate is a pleasing example of two actors working responsively together. Meyer has a way of communicating real depth of feeling with just a look or a dip of her head. The scene in which all four of them queue for the cinema in bitter cold is convincing. And I liked the contrast between the intense, truthful Guy and the rather more relaxed self accepting Hugh, who is currently a stay-at-home father.

Maybe, Probably has done well in the USA and is staged here with an American cast so it feels very natural. Although it is set in New York the issues it ranges over are both timeless and universal so we identify with each character and they’re all pretty well defined.  It sits happily in the bijoux intimacy of the Old Red Lion, with audience on two sides too.

The play could, however, be more streamlined. As it is we get a brief semi- black out and scurrying about with props at the end of each short scene which  feels oddly old fashioned and underdeveloped.  And, bizarrely, on press night a small but enthusiastically supportive audience applauded after each little episode. Thus the piece feels fragmented.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/maybe-probably/

Well, if you want naturalism in a showcase for versatility this is probably the way to go. Based on eavesdroppings collected by the twelve cast members in public places this summer, Another Eavesdropping is verbatim theatre in its purest form – ranging in an hour and three quarters (including interval) from three young  men trying to get an Uber to the irritation of someone carelessly coughing over popcorn in a crowded cinema, an earnest discussion about cheese, and a lot more. Some of the conversation is so mundane that the humour lies in the banality. It’s very finely observed.

It’s effectively a series of vignettes of various lengths with, usually, one of the actors morphing into another character for the next scene so that there’s a casting overlap. Meanwhile the rest of the company sit – in their plain coloured teeshirts and jeans – absolutely still and neutral at the sides.  It is not a play as such. Rather it hops from one situation to another, randomly. Such structure feels reminiscent of a student showcase but that is certainly not a criticism of the standard of acting which is pleasingly high.

Ricky Zalman, for instance, is splendid as a sick, angry, man in a pharmacy ranting at great length about the way his prescription has been prepared. And Georgia Dawson plays against him perfectly as the patient, long suffering pharmacist. Both shine in other roles too – Dawson, for example, cries in a cubicle in the gents while Taylor Pope (excellent at all times) kindly tries to coax her out. Like every single scene in this show, it’s pretty convincing.

I liked Gordana Kostic’s preshow performance as a street busker, soprano soon casually moved on by a bossy official and she is strong as the doctor/social worker ruthlessly trying to manage a mental health patient. Ben Armitage’s opening scene in which he meets a girl he knows and camply talks at her for what feels to us, and to her, for a very long time is nicely done too.

There is a lot of talent in this show and most of it is entertaining but inevitably it feels bitty and that makes it hard work to watch because you have to keep readjusting.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/another-eavesdropping/