Author: Jasmine P

Tyrell Williams’ Red Pitch makes its West End debut @sohoplace following 2 sold-out runs at the Bush Theatre, and a flurry of awards. Directed by Daniel Bailey, close friend and long-time collaborator of Williams, this semi-autobiographical play doesn’t need its audience to love, or even be remotely interested in, the beautiful game – football is the medium rather than the message in this moving and amusing coming-of-age story. 

@sohoplace’s in-the-round theatre works particularly well as a setting for this production, with the central stage designed by Amelia Jane Hankin as the titular red pitch, the audience become spectators in the stands. The show follows three friends – Bilal (Kedar Williams-Stirling of Sex Education), Joey (Emeka Sesay), and Omz (Francis Lovehall) – living on a council estate in South London, as they grow up, grow apart, and of course, play football.

Choreography (Gabrielle Nimo) is fresh, synchronised and energetic, sound (Khalil Madovi) and lighting (Ali Hunter) are both excellent, but it’s Williams’ script and the chemistry of the cast that make this production an instant hit. On the particular night I attended, understudy Toyin Omari-Kinch played Omz, but you could have believed you were seeing the original cast, together from 2022, from the seamless way these three actors interacted on stage.

Bilal’s arrogant charm comes easily for Williams-Stirling, but the real achievement for him lies in conveying the deep fear that underlies this character’s ambition and obsessive desire to succeed. Sesay is excellent as the calm and collected Joey, and Omz’s brittle, defensive energy is almost tangible through Omari-Kinch’s performance. 

Williams’ grew up on a council estate in south London, forged friendships through football, belonged to a community like the one in this play – perhaps that is why these three teenage boys, their lives hopes and the bond between them, feel stunningly real, and absolutely true.

The show explores themes of gentrification without “exploring” them – the audience is mercifully saved from long expository monologues that feel more like an interview with the writer than a piece of drama. Instead, we see the effects of these changes as they impact the lives of Bilal, Joey and Omz. The regeneration and gentrification of this London neighbourhood aren’t explored through an academic, or even political lens – this is purely personal. It’s home, it’s family, it’s friends. It’s opportunity and it’s also loss, as change always is.

Williams’ effortless humour ensures this production is an easy watch, in spite of and through its more heartbreaking moments. The structure of the play isn’t perfect, with most of the key plot points coming late in the drama, but this is still a beautifully told story, with instantly likeable characters, and an important exploration of the way that spaces and places can shape our lives.

Red Pitch is showing @sohoplace until the 4th May, so get a ticket quick. I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

Broken Water is written and produced by Michèle Winstanley, and directed by Nicola Samer. Running at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston until the 24th February, this account of the lives of three very different women living on the same street in London, has been shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award, BBC Writer’s Room, and the Nick Darke Award. This, alongside a cast of Rosemary Ashe, Sarah Hadland (of BBC’s Miranda) and Naomi Petersen, made for a palpable buzz of anticipation on press night.

The set is simple and effective: three wooden chairs, for the three women, which are rearranged over the course of the production, to represent various different settings. The play centres on the three women’s relationship to their femininity and their bodies, and their experiences of fertility, pregnancy, birth and motherhood. The writing is excellent – their stories diverge in almost every sense, and yet the audience comes away with a sense of the various parallels in their experiences, and the connections they forge with each other – in spite of their vastly differing ages, pasts, and futures.

In this respect, you could argue the play is accessible to a wide audience – not just for the young, the old or the middle-aged. But its representation of the struggles of having children, or trying to have them, is centred on cis-hetero women, and as a result may lack connection for a queer audience, and indeed may struggle to convert the hordes of cis-hetero men into paying attention to the experiences of women. 

But the play is funny, affectionate and warm, striking a good balance between scenes of suffering and heartbreak, and those of laughter and joy. It’s eminently watchable, if at times gritty. The cast are excellent, the characters convincingly portrayed, and Sarah Hadland and Naomi Petersen in particular deserve a mention for their versatility.

I particularly liked the way Winstanley highlights the ways in which motherhood can make you invisible – in one particularly funny scene Philippa (Hadland) talks about catcalling men while she’s pushing a pram, and the shock and horror in their response. There’s an important point here – Winstanley shows us the ways that women are made to not count (they’re endless really) if they do have children, and the ways that they can be excluded or stigmatised when they don’t. As ever, as a woman, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Despite the perhaps slightly narrow nature of this production’s content, it does what it says on the tin very, very well. If that alone doesn’t convince you to go and see it, several very familiar faces from British television dotted around the audience suggest this is definitely one to watch, and the standing ovation at the end was indeed well-deserved.

Bea P. Deigh is written and performed by Arden Winant, an actor and writer originally from NYC. This production exploring the experiences of those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder had its run at The Pen Theatre from 16th – 20th January. A small independent theatre in Bermondsey, this is an intimate venue, and well-suited to Winant’s largely one woman play. 

Irish Actor Daniel Keogh stars alongside Winant as a janitor working at The Brain, Inc., – the headquarters inside the mind of each individual. The play is produced by Hannah Jayne, and directed by Grainne Robson and this small team does a good job of bringing Winant’s vision to life.

The show centres around Bea P. Deigh, a secretary who has just started work at the offices inside the brain of a woman living with Borderline Personality Disorder. This is a useful setup, and allows Winant to convey well the experience of a brain at war with itself. 

Much of the material is drawn from Winant’s own experiences of being diagnosed with BPD, and she switches between the characters of Bea P. Deigh, and apparently, herself, – the individual living with this condition. Bea represents the humour, the sarcasm, the darkly cynical and self-destructive sides of ourselves, and Winant’s character speaks directly to the audience, often movingly, about the struggles and suffering she has experienced throughout her life living with this condition. The fact that much of the material is autobiographical is clear, the honesty and truth of Winant’s experiences are palpable to the audience. Of course, the clever ploy of switching between two characters who are both the same person, and not, in a show about Borderline Personality Disorder, deserves credit.

Keogh is excellent as the quiet, kind janitor who works in the office, towards whom Bea is initially scathing, and through whom she later learns to trust and accept help, although perhaps the scene where this is played out labours the point a little.
Overall, I have to applaud the show’s intention to bring to light a diagnosis which is deeply stigmatised, and that women and girls are disproportionately diagnosed with. However, recent literature demonstrating the many problems surrounding the diagnosis and definition of BPD itself, (e.g. Dr Jessica Taylor’s Sexy but Psycho) including some deeply misogynistic ideas that underpin the origin of this diagnosis, meant I found some of the messages more difficult to swallow. Talking about and representing personal experiences of mental health is always difficult, as so many people have their own differing experiences and opinions, and connecting with a wider audience over something so specific is nigh on impossible. Ultimately, the performance falls down on these points, and is prone to falling into cliche. Nevertheless, spotlighting the diagnosis of BPD is an admirable, necessary and courageous move from Winant. Hats off to her.