An enchanting tale
illustrating human life
fulfilled by the greats
Ralph Fiennes closes his Theatre Royal Bath season not with a grand flourish, but with a quietly devastating one-act meditation on love, regret, and legacy. Small Hotel unfolds like a fever dream, asking what remains when the spotlight fades. After the success of Grace Pervades and As You Like It, the expectations were high and they are met with a production that is emotionally raw and stylistically dramatic.
Written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Small Hotel explores themes of love, loss, family and guilt, interlacing them to reveal the consequences of choices made and chances missed throughout a life that has been lived. Larry, once a celebrated television interviewer, is staring down the collapse of his career. In a last attempt to regain his reputation, he decides to revisit his turbulent relationship with Marianne, a woman whose presence lingers like a shadow over his past. Alongside this central thread, Larry navigates his mother’s declining health, the quiet resilience of his twin brother, and encounters with a mysterious figure who seems to hover at the edges of his life.
Fiennes, almost impossibly, exceeds expectations. His commitment to the complex yet starkly relatable characters is remarkable, instantly moving from rage to romance to reckoning in a seamless way, making his performance deeply emotive. Rosalind Eleazar infuses Marianne with the fire of her complex character. Her performance during the interview is a special moment to witness, with the build of emotions leaving the audience struck. Francesca Annis is outstanding as Larry’s mother. Her long-winded, almost one-way conversations are a highlight. Rachel Tucker’s multiple roles add a dreamlike haze, allowing moments of deliberate confusion and discomfort to seep in, much like the unpredictability of real life.
Holly Race Roughan’s direction blends creative elements resulting in a dream-like interpretation of this chapter in the characters’ lives. Sudden haikus jolt the audience’s focus; bursts of tap dancing echo like the ticking of an entertainer’s internal clock, shifting us between dreamscape and reality. There are bursts of old Hollywood both in costume (Loren Elstein) and digitisation (Sarah Fahie) alongside a shifting tapestry that blurs reality and memory. These theatrical devices both disorient and focus the audience, mirroring Larry’s fragmented state of mind.
Small Hotel is a triumph not because it provides easy answers, but because it doesn’t try to. It sits with the messiness of ambition, memory and love, inviting the audience to reflect rather than resolve. As the lights fade, the lingering feeling is like music in an empty lobby: soft, haunting, and impossible to ignore.
Small Hotel plays at the Theatre Royal Bath until 18th October. Tickets are available here.