The Pitchfork Disney at Lantern Theatre

I try, with high success, to see every production of a Philip Ridley play in London and it did not take a lot to extend this mission to Brighton.

My Google Alert for "Philip Ridley" brought this production to my attention and as I was already due to be in Lewes that weekend (for an Arthur Brown concert) a plan for the weekend quickly formed. That involved staying in Eastbourne for two nights because the hotels in Brighton were prohibitively expensive, which was fine as that gave me another new place to explore for a couple of days.

The plan had to be tweaked a little when maintenance works closed the railway line out of Eastbourne but there proved to be plenty of buses going along the south coast and I was able to take an A12X for free (it helps to be old sometimes). The bus took an hour and I sat upstairs and enjoyed the view.

The Lantern Theatre had the good sense to be near an Italian restaurant so that was the evening meal sorted.

The theatre was small and cosy, as expected. It was something like the Old Red Lion of the (previous) White Bear. My sort of theatre.

It was my sort of play too. I had seen The Pitchfork Disney only once before and was looking forward to seeing it again. Ridley's plays are so dense with wild thoughts and ideas that I cannot help but forget much of the details. To give but one example, the 28 year old twin brother and sister living together reveal, as an aside, that their parents simply left them and had not died as we had naturally assumed. The reason for this was never explored, let alone answered. I love that Ridley can have an idea that big and just throw it away almost unused.

For me, The Pitchfork Disney is about reality, a concept much visited by Ridley. Here we assume that the siblings are heavily locked in their flat to protect them from the post-apocalyptic world outside but when that world intrudes, in the bizarre form of Cosmo Disney, the reality of that world is questioned.

The Pitchfork Disney also sounds like a Philip Ridley play with its poetic dialogue and use of repetition. It is a joy to listen to even when the words are familiar.

I like this production too. The setting was just right and the small cast did their job well. Ela Chapman, the sister, stood out for me with her expressions of fear and isolation.

The journey down to Brighton, and the nights away, just to see this were well worth it.