The Poltergeist at Arcola Theatre

My mission to watch every performance of a Philip Ridley play in London (and easily accessible places beyond) continued with The Poltergeist at Arcola Theatre, were I had first seen it almost exactly two years earlier.

This time it was on downstairs in Studio 2 where front row seat A12 was a sound investment at £25.

I planned the day to give me a little time in Dalston beforehand and I did a little exploring while also looking for somewhere to eat. 

It struck me that gentrification had failed to stick and the posh places that I had eaten at previously were all gone. And so I found myself, yet again, at The Speakeasy which despite being little more than a marquee is a friendly place and serves reasonable beer with good food; it was a pint of Camden Pale Ale and some veggie tacos this time. 

I remembered the gist of The Poltergeist but, as with all Philip Ridley plays, there is so much going on in the dialogue  that I knew I would be surprised, stimulated and entertained.

This was a solo performance (monologue seems inappropriate) and the heavy duties were given to Louis Davison who played the narrator, Sasha, and a host of other people. Incidentally, Sasha is a deliberate unisex name and many of Ridley's solo plays can be performed by a woman or man.

The stage was empty and the only props Davison had to play were his clothes and in his simple outfit in which he strode the length and breadth of the stage assuredly telling Sasha's story for eighty minutes.

On one level it was a simple story with Sasha and his partner attending a family child's birthday party which Sasha found difficult for reasons that gradually became clearer. Through the many conversations with the many party attendees, all played by Davison, we learned that Sasha had once been a promising artist until he had some sort of breakdown, the causes of which also emerge. 

The richness of the plau is in the dialogue, not the plot, and I was totally engaged for the full eighty minutes as I desperately tried to catch each quickly delivered word. And despite the core subject matter, a mental breakdown, the mood was often light and I laughed out loud quite a few times.

Philip Ridley has a distinctive style and voice which appeals to me immensely and The Poltergeist was yet another great example of why that is.

Pitchfork Disney at King's Head Theatre

I am still determined to see every production of a Philip Ridley play that I can so a revival of The Pitchfork Disney at King's Head Theatre was a no-brainer, despite (or because of) having seen it twice before, in Brighton in 2023 and Shoreditch Town Hall in 2017.

The King's Head Theatre has moved from above a pub to far below a new mixed-use development nearby and that has had an impact on ticket prices so my seat C21 was £42. That's not actually that much for theatre these days but my price expectations are sill somewhat set (unreasonably) by pre-covid pub theatre prices.

My keenness meant that I was quick to book and got a seat in the centre of the main seating with a perfect view of the stage.

All the action takes place in this messy sitting room with its many door locks.

Here we meet the odd twenty-something twins Presley and Haley. They argue over chocolate and medicine and tell each other exaggerated stories about being chased by dogs and being in a dark wasteland. These are stories they have told each other many times, just like one repeats stories to young children.

These stories are also typical Ridley monologues and so have their own value despite not being directly related to the main story.

Then they see two people outside, one of whom leaves, and after some argument they allow the other one in. That is Cosmo Disney and everything changes. Cosmo is a loud force of purpose and certainty which the meek and subdued twins can do little to contain.

The tone changes from retelling favourite stories to a barrage of questions as Cosmo tries to work out what is going on with the twins and they struggle to find out something about Cosmo. This is where the cockroaches in the poster come in. Here Cosmo's swagger dominates the play and William Robinson's acting is relentlessly powerful, questioning and in command. Cosmo has to carry the play and with William Robinson it does so assuredly.

The final short section introduced the other man seen outside, Pitchfork, who is monstrous in appearance and sound. While the Cosmo character is recognisable, if exaggerated, there are no similes for Pitchfork in real life.

It is a short sharp shock that bring the play to a magnificent conclusion.

The Pitchfork Disney at King's Head Theatre was an excellent production of an excellent play.

Tarantula at Arcola Theatre

I have a Google Alert running for Philip Ridley and I believe that I have seen every production of his plays in London over the last ten years or so (and one in Brighton too) so I was always going to go to see Tarantula and it was a nice bonus that it was on at Arcola Theatre, one of my very favourite theatres and where my love affair with the works of Philip Ridley began in 2014.

Tarantula was a new piece for the stage (it had been done online) but I had some idea of what to expect as it was part of a series of monologues that I saw in 2018. One of the actors then was Georgie Henley and it was pleased to see that she was doing Tarantula.

Some of his other monologues from that period are still on line at We Are Tramp and are well worth watching.

These monolgues are of various lengths had the usual Ridley mix of darkness, surrealism, real life, comedy and savage twists, all the things that make me love the plays so much.

Tarantula is narrated by a young woman (or man, it does not matter which) who lives at home with her parents, an elder brother and a much younger sister. She falls in love, twice, and we here the details of chance encounters, first hesitant dates and the consequences of unexpected events.

The first romance ended particularly badly, thanks to the spider, hence the need for the second. 

The play was incident rich and had me fully engrossed for ninety minutes, so much so that the lights going off came as a complete surprise. The way the scenes were string together reminded me a little of Under Milk Wood with the first romances being used as the thread to link the stories. Each romance was a major plot line across the stories with the first ending violently and the second ambivalently (much as Gators had).

Tarantula was sold out so I guess there are quite a few Ridley fans out there and we saw a play that had all of his hallmarks, which is all that I hoped for. We also saw an astonishing solo performance that included a lot of emotion, movement, expression and words. It was award winning stuff and I suspect that the awards will come.

Tarantula was a reminder of what makes Philip Ridley so special and also of how good and actor Georgie Henley is and why Arcola Theatre is such a good venue. Three out of three.

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. 

Vincent River at Greenwich Theatre

This was my third Philip Ridley plays in a few weeks and while it was the third time I had seen Vincent River it was the first time that I had been to Greenwich Theatre.

Ridley regular Julie was joining us and we arranged to meet in Greenwich at 12:30. Arriving first we chose the artCafe just inside the bustling Greenwich Market.

Coffee consumed, we went for an explore of the old town while looking for somewhere to eat. After walking in pretty circles we ended up at Ruby's of London, almost next door to the first cafe, because they do vegan and plant-based food. The burger was good.

Getting to the theatre I was surprised to see that it had a cafe and bar as there was no mention of this on their website. They need to change that. At least I had time to buy a pint of beer to take in with me.

The auditorium had new seats and plenty of them. On the advice of the box office I had gone for a seat by a side aisle to try and ensure a clear view whoever sat in front of me and I was happy with the result. Seat E9 was a very modest £10.

The set, as expected, was a simple living room with a few unpacked boxes. About the only props used were some cups and a couple of bottles pretending to be gin and tonic.

I knew the story quite well but Ridley fills his script with rich language and I was quickly immersed in the imagery. The setting was a sitting room but the dialogue was of disused railways, hospitals and the signature East London landmarks Victoria Park and the canal.

The play is a gradual unravelling of three lives gently fuelled by intoxicants. The unravelling goes to some dark and violent places lightened with some touching family moments. The mood swings and the revelations keep the play engaging and interesting for 90 rewarding and entertaining minutes.

Vincent River is a two-handed play and Kerrie Taylor as the mother who lost a son to violence and Brandon Kimaryo as the young man who discovered the body were both excellent. Their movement was good too so James Haddrell deserves a mention for his direction.

Vincent River is one of my favourite Ridley plays and this was the best version of it that I have seen.

In The Forest of Starlight and Shrapnel at The Yard Theatre

Few things, if any, get me more excited than a new Philip Ridley play at a new theatre in a not so well known corner of London, and this ticked all three boxes.

This was the first production of In The Forest of Starlight and Shrapnel so it was new to everyone, not just me.

The Yard Theatre is in trendy Hackney Wick close to River Lea and Hertford Union Canal. I had been to that area a few times on long cross-London walks, and had set a world record for paying for a coffee nearby, but had not had the excuse to linger there before.

Thanks to London Overground, Hackney Wick is very easy for me to get to and we set off just after lunch. We again met fellow Ridley fan Julie there and did some mooching around the heavily graffitied industrial buildings before pausing for hot drinks (more affordable this time) just the other side of the river.

The Yard Theatre was, unsurprisingly, in an industrial yard that it shared with other hospitality spaces. We went in with enough time to have a late afternoon beer before the performance. Philip Ridley was also in the bar, the fourth or fifth time I had seen him at a theatre. I avoided playing fan-boy and left him to get on with whatever he was doing though I was pleased when he recognised me and said hello as we queued to go in.

I loved the set and it told me I was going to love the play.

Philip Ridley plays come in various forms and this one was fairly traditional with a chronological story told by several characters through a series of scenes. But, being Ridley, the story and characters were nicely strange.

The story was a familiar one too, peasants rebelling against a brutal totalitarian state, and contained some familiar tropes, like people with supernatural abilities and with titles like Healer, but these were just comprehensible objects for Ridley to hang his wild ideas on.

And there were a lot of wild ideas thrown into the long mix. I was conscious that I was enjoying the ride but was travelling so fast that I was missing many things. The mix was incredibly satisfying and the many diverse elements worked well together, this was a proper feast not a work's do buffet.

The sheer weight of ideas needed a large cast to carry it and there were around a dozen actors buzzing around the stage as the story evolved and the scenes changed. The most extreme character was the brutal soldier leader for the state who was also the ruler's brother, he was both camp and sadistic. Exchanging a few quick words afterwards in the bar the actor, still in stage make-up, said what a delight it was to play that character. 

I cannot begin to understand why Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama commissioned this work heavily placed in East London, as Ridley plays often are (but I missed any mention of Victoria Park), nor why there were so few performances. I can only hope that having started its life so brilliantly that In The Forest of Starlight and Shrapnel gets another run somewhere soon so I can see it again to enjoy it again and to fill in some of the ideas that I missed on my first passing.

It is hard to categorise or compare Ridley plays but none of them have hit me as hard as In The Forest of Starlight and Shrapnel did since Ghost From A Perfect Place nine years ago. I would love to see that play again too.

We had not yet finished with Hackney Wick. It was early evening and we wanted food. At the other end of the yard, beside the river, we found CRATE Brewery and Pizzeria which was full of lively twenty somethings (on a Tuesday night) so us there sixty somethings joined them. The location, food, drink and atmosphere were just what we needed.

Radiant Vermin at Tabard Theatre was excellent

I have travelled across London to see Philip Ridley plays so making the short hop to see Radiant Vermin at Tabard Theatre in Turnham Green was always going to happen.

This was my third time of seeing Radiant Vermin in three different productions, the most recent being only last September.  The three productions shared a minimalist approach (no props, no staging and no backdrops), all made good use of the different spaces they were in and all had excellent acting.

Tabard can be criticised for not naming the actors on their website but at least they are named in the free programme so I can give well deserved mentions to Laura Janes as wife, Matthew John Wright as husband and Emma Sweeney as devil(?) and tramp.

This production had more audience interaction than the others and even changed the script ever so slightly to let us vote between a new garage or a new bathroom. I was sitting in my usual seat, A4 which was almost theft at £16, and so got spoken directly and looked at quite often. Audience interaction is a key part of the story as it is told as a narrative and the couple are seeking our acceptance for what they have done and this production kept the dynamic between performers and audience bubbling throughout.

Radiant Vermin is a fast paced script with lots of lovely phrases, unexpected details and sudden sideways jumps that it still felt fresh on my third listening.

This production is probably my favourite (so far!). Some of that is down to the size of the theatre (Soho was too big, Ram Jam too small) but most of it is down to the sheer quality of the production overall and to the acting in particular.

Radiant Vermin at Ram Jam Club was an unexpected treat

I have a Google Alert set for Philip Ridley and I was drinking in the Grey Horse last night so I was surprised to the extent of being shocked to discover this morning that there was a Ridley play on at Ram Jam Club (part of the pub) today.

A few frantic unanswered emails later and I was walking to the pub in the hope, and some expectation, that I would be able to get in. I was about the first person there and as it had not sold out I was able to get a ticket. I also got a pint of Naked Ladies and a table at the front.

The Ram Jam Club is a cosy venue and it worked well fashioned for theatre. I had only be there previously for music.

I had some trepidations about seeing the play as when I saw it the first time, at Soho Theatre in March 2015, it starred Gemma Whelan and that is a hard act to follow. Still, I reasoned that it was a brilliant script and some modest acting would not hurt it too much.

I was right on one count and wrong on the other.

The script was brilliant and in addition to it's fantastical story it had some exquisite lines. Just one example, "You stick out like a toddler's leg leg from a crocodile's mouth". The acting, however, was not modest - it was very good. I was particularly impressed by the quick fire birthday party scene at the end when Joy Bowers and James Dart had to play multiple roles at the same time. It was wonderfully done.

It was a small stage and good use was made of it. The movement was a significant component of the play's success so here is a little bit of recognition for Movement Director Louise-Mai Newbury.

Radiant Vermin was a real treat and all the more so for being unexpected.

Moonfleece at Pleasance Theatre was perfect

The Pleasance Theatre is hidden in a yet to be gentrified area of London just of the Caledonian Road which I had walked past a few times when based at Kings Place (back in the days or extensive walks during extended lunch breaks) but which I had not signed up to. Then my Google Alert for "Ridley theatre London" alerted me to the pending arrival of Moonfleece and I subscribed to their newsletter.

A couple of months later and I was on the Piccadilly Line to Caledonian Road. My research earlier in the day informed me that the theatre was above a pub, The Depot (appropriately named from  its recent use), which boaster a gastro menu, that is one without pound signs and big numbers with no decimal points in them. My Fiorentina Pizza cost 10 and took over half an hour to arrive but was delicious.

Front of house at Pleasance surprised me. There was a decent bar and generous seating which excelled those of some more mainstream theatres I frequent (no names!). I had had one pint with my food in the pub so I settled for an ice cream, also taking into account that there was not going to be an interval.

I waited casually at the bottom of the stairs and was the first person into the smaller of their two performance spaces (they will soon have a third) and claimed a seat in the middle of one of the two front rows facing each other. That seat cost me 17, a bargain in anybody's book.

In between those seats was a simple room in something of a mess. It was quickly established that this was an empty flat on the top (21st) floor of a Council block. Squatting in it was a young woman and making their dramatic entrance by smashing the door down were two young men in identical grey suits and red ties who were working for Avalon an alt-right party campaigning in local elections.

The situation got as messy as the room soon afterwards as an Avalon leader arrived soon followed by an ex-girlfriend, her current girlfriend, a massively camp journalist and a psychic librarian in a wheelchair, followed later by another alt-right leader (step brother to the first), his Towie wife and, finally, the first woman's boyfriend and street storyteller.

With that mix lots of things could happen and lots of things did.

The play started as a confrontation between the alt-right young men and the young female for foreign squatter. Sparks flew and the young woman gave as good as she got. One of the Avalon team was very pit-bullish and was a good source of humour.

Gradually the story changed to being about the Avalon leader and then about his real brother, the one in the Moonfleece jacket. There were other stories bubbling around arising from the various partially shared histories of the many characters. Finally it was the story teller who brought things to a close by revealing some unpleasant truths in a powerful improvised story.

Moonfleece had lots of familiar Ridley elements and reminded me most of Piranha Heights (piranhas got a passing mention) and Ghost from a Perfect Place. It was deeply East London in geography and feel, had people trying to make sense of the past, had significant elements of myth and was very strange yet close enough to reality to be believable. Ridley's plays manage to be complex, engaging, fantastical and relevant all at the same time. I find them an immensely rewarding experience,

Because of this Philip Ridley is one of my absolutely favourite playwrights, which is why I have that Google Alert set up, and so I was always likely to enjoy Moonfleece. I enjoyed it even more thanks to the excellent cast, all ten of whom were spot on in capturing their characters, and the staging that set the scene precisely.

This production of Moonfleece was perfect.

Vincent River at Park Theatre was riveting

There was a rush of Philip Ridley plays early last year and then again this. Vincent River was one of three different Philip Ridley plays on across London in just a few weeks. I would have gone to see this wherever it was on and being at Park Theatre, one of my regular haunts, just made things like travel and easting easier.

I eagerly forked out my £14.50 for a seat. I presume that was a preview price as it was ridiculously cheap. It was the first night of the run but that was just a co-incidence and was chosen because it was about the only free evening I had during the run.

I also forked out £12 for Park Theatre's new Pizza and Drink deal to make the food even easier. That sort of worked but as a vegetarian I only had two choices of pizza and one of those would have been cheaper to buy without going for the deal. The London Bohemia Lager was nice.

The main show started at 7:30 and keen to secure a good seat that is when I joined the queue for Vincent River. There was only one person in front of me in the queue and, not unexpectedly, he was another Ridley fan. We both claimed seats in the front row.

We were in a slightly dishevelled living room, not unlike that for Killing Time. In the room was, Anita, Louise Jameson in an aggressive red wig. There was a knock on the door and in came Davey (Thomas Mahy), a young lad who moved nervously and continuously.

For the next hour or so we watched as the couple sparred with each other. There was a reason that Davey was there and Anita knew it. There was also a reason why Anita had moved into a new flat.

As they sparred the emotions grew in intensity and in direction. Davey threatened to walked out at times, was told to go at others and they also shared drinks, drugs and a few kisses. As the emotions waxed and waned it was hard to predict how it would all end though I was not expecting many laughs.

Their conversations also uncovered more about their shared past, and why their pasts were shared, and it was the typical Ridley unravelling of layers to expose the raw truth. That truth hit in a recollection of a bus journey that Davey had taken and that changed the whole narrative.

As the play drew to its conclusion it became more of a monologue as Davey described the pivotal events that had brought the two together. It was powerful stuff.

Vincent River was the most normal Ridley play that I had seen. Yes it had dark secrets that were finally exposed but there was no fantasy in the story and no strange characters to explore. It was a simple dark believable story told the Ridley way and that made it magical.

This was the first night and afterwards Philip Ridley disappeared back stage with his notes which meant that I had no chance to bump into the cast afterwards. I made up for that a few days later when I was back at Park Theatre for another play, A Passage to India, on the press night for Vincent River and was able to have a very quick congratulatory word with Thomas Mahy then. 

A second delightful dose of Angry at Southwark Playhouse

My second visit to see Angry at Southwark Playhouse was actually the one that I booked first, before I made the second booking to see the alternative version of the play and, more importantly, to see Philip Ridley in the Q and A session afterwards.

This was, probably, the first time that I had seen the same production of a play, as opposed to seeing many different versions of something like Three Sisters, and it was most definitely the first time that I had seen any version of the same play twice in just five days.

The point of the two versions was that the two actors alternated in the roles of each of the monologues so while I knew what to expect in some aspects I also knew that it was different in others.

The preamble was the same with a meal at Culture Grub, by Young Vic, followed by a walk up to Southwark Playhouse and then a pint for a treat.

There are a lot of words in Angry and I was not surprised that I had forgotten a lot of them in five days while remembering the basic themes. The rich and complex dialogue alone made the play worth a second visit. The change in performers was a bonus.

I enjoyed Angry the second time around even more than I did the first. A large part of that was probably down to the familiarity that let me focus on some of the detail with the main themes already secured. Another part was I slightly preferred Georgia Henley version of Air, the long monologue that closed and defined the play. That said, I also slightly preferred Tyrone Huntley's version of two of the smaller monologues, Okay and Dancing, from the first show.

It was definitely worth seeing both shows.

The second visit to Angry confirmed that is is always worth seeing a Philip Ridley play even if you have already seen it that week.

Angry at Southwark Playhouse was a phenomenal evening

Philip Ridley is one of a select few playwrights for whom I have a Google Alert set up for. This is because I am keen to see everything of his that I can. So far his plays have taken me to places like Old Red Lion, The Bunker and N16 for the first time and to more familiar places too, like The Cockpit.

Southwark Playhouse is one of my favourite theatres so going to see Angry was a no-brainer and I booked it.

Then they announced a series of Q&A sessions a couple of which Philip Ridley would be at and that left me with no choice but to book for a second night, which I actually went to first. Luckily the nice people at Tramp thought of that and there were two versions of the play with the two actors alternating the parts.

Mary Stewart had the same idea but there the two roles were both women and they decided on a roll of a coin which meant that you did not know who was going to play what role. In Angry the two actors were of different genders and allocation of actors to roles was in the programme. That meant that I knew that this performance would be different from the one that I had already booked for.

I have a routine for Southward Playhouse which includes a curry at Culture Grub and then a nice walk up to the theatre. I got there in good time to buy a drink and then hang around the door to be sure of being amongst the first to get in. That plan worked well and I got what looked to be the best seat.

The stage was seat in the round (or square) with the performance area sung about a foot. The picture taken at the Q&A session shows me in the front row next to the steps.

While we waited for the show to star our ears were assaulted by All Drums Go to Hell from Two Steps From Hell. It was load and very industrial. I loved it, Shazam could not cope with all the chatter so I asked one of the crew what it was afterwards. It set the scene nicely.

The show started with people still talking, as they often do. The rule seems to be if actors are not actually talking then it's ok for the audience to talk. The two actors Tyrone Huntley and Georgia Henley entered the pit and stalked each other menacingly. Angry had started.

The music stopped and the words started. They were angry sweary words that were shouted with venom. Less a play, more a study on Tourettes. Huntley left the stage to leave the anger with Henley who directly confronted the audience with it before storing off.

Huntley returned for Okay in which he procrastinated through ever tightening and speeding circles which replaced anger with some solid humour.

Henley's second piece was Bloodshot. A somewhat dark and strange piece, i.e. typical Ridley, about teenage love. Then it was Huntley's turn for a spot of comedy in Dancing, a lament against poor security that allowed severed heads  to spoil a night out clubbing. Henley's third and final piece was just odd which, with the repetition, also marked it out as a Ridley piece. At one point she was in a spaceship being sucked into a black hole; you get the idea.

Air closed the show and lasted for about as long as all the other monologues put together, some 45 minutes. The endurance test for Huntley was increased by the nature of the story which was deeply emotional in two directions. It started as a tender love story then the helicopters came and the darkness came with them. It ended with a desperate fight for air in a sinking ship.

Air was undoubtedly the star of the show but I liked all of the monologues and the way that they gelled together.

The Q&A session that followed was a real bonus with some good questions getting some good responses. It was also good to see Terri Paddock lead the session. I knew from her Twitter feed that we had been to many of the same plays but never on the same night before.

When even that was over I just had to go and say something nice to Philip Ridley and I managed to show why they say that you should never meet your heroes as I bumbled almost incoherently. I think enough of my admiration came through and he seemed genuinely pleased and a little surprised to be approached by a fan.

Angry was a phenomenal evening for many reasons and I had it all to look forward to again four days later.

Dark Vanilla Jungle was just as scary the second time

My Google Alert did its job and alerted me to a new production of Dark Vanilla Jungle and I made my booking immediately, £14 for an unreserved seat.

I would have gone to see it if it had been in N16 (which lies just north of  Arcola Theatre) but Theatre N16 had been on its travels and had landed much closer to home in Balham where it has taken up residency above large and rambling Bedform Arms.

I had never been to Balham before (other than passing through on a train) and was looking forward to doing a little exploration too. The exploration was somewhat limited by the pub being next to the station and the difficulty in crossing several busy roads to get there.

The Bedform Arms did its job reasonably well providing a decent, if not very full, pint (eventually) and a pretty good vegetarian burger from its limited menu.

Immediately above the pub was a large function room but that was used for some sort of keep fit class and the theatre was another floor up in a modest room, much like other pub theatres such as Pentameters and the White Bear. The stage was a simple white rectangle with normal dining chairs on three sides. There may have been some more theatrical type seating behind these but I headed straight from the front row in the central block and did not pay much attention to the other seats. I was not surprised by the limited set as The Cockpit had been much the same, if rather larger.

Dark Vanilla Jungle was a monologue, told by a young woman called Andrea, that jumped in various directions, threw in a few shocks and told some stories that might not have been true. In construction it was similar to Donny Stixx but that means little more than saying all Beethoven's string quartets used the same instruments as the same techniques were used to different effects.

And like a work of classical music, Dark Vanilla Jungle had distinct sections with one story following another but told in such a way that there was no gap between them. These stories covered Andrea's early years living with her parents, being in an exploitative relationship as a teenager and then (possibly mad, possibly dreaming) her relationship with a seriously injured soldier.

Being Philip Ridley these stories were thick with prose that demanded a close listen just as poetry does. Each sentence could be appreciated for its own form as well as for the narrative that they helped to construct.

Dark Vanilla Jungle lasted about 75 busy minutes after which both performer (Emily Thornton) and audience had reached a summit that it was too exhausting to try and go beyond. I have seen plays that last twice as long do half as much.

It is because of plays like Dark Vanilla Jungle and of evenings like this one that I have a Google Alert for Philip Ridley.

A brilliant evening with Dark Vanilla Jungle at The Cockpit

This was a very mixed evening, it ended brilliantly but there were a few hiccoughs along the way.

There are four playwrights that I have Google Alerts set up for and Philip Ridley is one of them. So it irked me somewhat to find out about a production of his play Dark Vanilla Jungle at one of my regular theatre by accident. I forget the details now but I presume it was via Twitter, it normally is.

The Cockpit Theatre used to be a pleasant walk around Regent's Park from my office in Kings Cross but working in Teddington meant coming up with alternative plans. It was a sunny evening so I opted to take the train to Wimbledon, the tube to South Kensington and to walk the rest of the way including a jaunt through Hyde Park. That was a very pretty walk taking in the Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion, some sculptures and the Italian Gardens. The plan was working.

I had time for a proper meal and my plan included a curry in a place I had been before. That plan went less well. Conscious of the time I placed my simple order as soon as I got in there but 30 minutes later and I did not even have a papadum to show for it. I had to leave then so I went to pay for the mango lassi that had arrived, they were all very apologetic and offered me a free meal later that evening and I was all very reasonable about it and declined due to lack of time. I forgave them, we parted amicably and I'll be back. Plan B, not for the first time, was a packet of Nobby's Nuts and a bottle of beer in the theatre bar just before the performance.

This was almost 9pm and that brings me on to the last bad point. I do not know who thought that 9pm was a good time to put a play on, particularly one that demanded attention all the way through. This, combined with the lack of publicity, probably explained the low turnout. I don't think that it was the smallest audience that I have ever been in but it was close.

I made my way into the theatre and took a seat in the second row in my usual area (the front row is too low and is like sitting on a child's chair). The stage was bare apart from a desk, a chair and a woman sitting on it. And that is all that there was throughout the performance.

She was writing what I assumed was a statement of some sort and that turned out to be right. This was Andrea and for the next 90 minutes or so she told us her story.

It was a story that leaped around in time, something she apologised to us for, as she told us about how her parents met and how she came to be living with her grandmother, who she did not get on with.

Early on she dropped big hints as to what might come, with references to a soldier, a baby and dark events in Epping Forest, before we converged on the story of her and Tyrone.

That was a pretty dark story too. I think we all saw the sexual grooming coming though the brutality was no less shocking because of that. Andrea's reaction was equally shocking as she tried to reconcile what had happened to her with her love for Tyrone. Things got a little weird after that but remained gripping and absorbing.

Every Philip Ridley play I had seen, this was my fifth, had been so rich with ideas that I am sure that many of them passed me by on a first watching. The time-hoping was the simplest to understand and simply mirrored how we communicate normally, a tale is rarely told chronologically. There were relatively few references to religion and mysticism compared to his other works but they were there. More obvious were the repeated lines, or themes, such as the descriptions of two people meeting for the first time and the ice creams, which is where I presume the "vanilla" in the title came from.

It was a well crafted play, as I knew that it would be, with the themes leaping and mingling while the mood bounced up and down in different phases, like a symphony. One scene that clings vividly in my memory had an angry Andrea scattering c-bombs like confetti having never used such strong language before.

I am beyond praise for Lexie Braverman who played Andrea in the gruelling one-woman show. It was a difficult enough task to do all the talking for 90 minutes and was made even more difficult by the subject matter and more difficult still by the extreme variation in mood required. Lexie was brilliant.

The staging was good too. Like the gymnastics floor exercise, full use was made of the marked out square with Lexie sometimes moving the desk to another part of the stage where it became something else.

The best indication of how gripped I was by the play and the performance was is that I still had some of my beer left at the end of it. Even taking a swig would have been too much of an interruption.

It was late when it finished, 10:30pm to save you doing the maths, and with a difficult journey home (thanks to closing the road to/from Richmond) I was not keen to hang around but I did stay just long enough to say a few words with Lexie. I would have liked linger but then she deserved a rest too, I was exhausted from watching it so I can only guess at how drained she must have been.

Dark Vanilla Jungle was a difficult play to watch because of the subject matter but I am very glad that I did.
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Radiant Vermin at the Soho Theatre showed the charming side of mass-murder

I was a fairly late in discovering Philip Ridley, it all started with Ghost from a Perfect Place in October 14, but I fell in love with his writing very quickly and that made Radiant Vermin a must-see for me.

While the Soho is not one of my very favourite theatres, it lacks the front of house atmosphere for that, it is still one that I like a lot and it had the advantage of being well placed, in Soho funnily enough. It's location helped here as I had to be in Reading during the day and so had to rush back to see this. It's a routine that I am used to now and the only tricky bit was deciding which pasty to get at the station.

Queueing for the theatre at Soho is always awkward and people, myself included, hung around the door to the bar. Things got better when another show was called as that thinned the numbers considerably. When it was our turn I was well placed enough and alert enough to get a front-row seat.

There was not much to look at, apart from a white stage with a slightly raised white background. I was already liking it.

Then we met young couple Ollie and Jill who said that they had a story to tell us and that they were really nice people really but they had done some pretty terrible things. They did all this in a cheesy TV advert sort of way while wearing the sort of clothes that only people with no imagination wear, something like M&S but a little posher. Alan Partridge would have approved.

Then it got quickly got complicated and complex as we were sucked into a typical Ridley realm that blended typical family life with horror, mystery, humour and politics, and they were just the most obvious ingredients in a most delightful stew.

The basic premise was that they were approached by a Miss D., offering them the chance to get a new house for free. This would be in a run-down area and they would have to do it up by themselves. The aim being to encourage other people back into the neglected area by planting the seed of one restored house.

So far so good and plausible too.

Then an accident reveals a quick way to get the house not just restored but refashioned exactly as they wished it could be. The bad news was that somebody had to die but the less bad news was that this was a vagrant who nobody would miss. The story evolved quickly from there and the couple got the house that they wanted and they got better at killing vagrants.

That opened all sorts of questions, such as how much did the Government really know about this scheme (e.g. did they see the loss of vagrants as another benefit?), how many such schemes where there?, who or what was Miss D.?, did the scheme work by magic, science or was there a religious element?

As the couple sunk deeper and deeper into the horror (from our perspective), they remained resolutely charming, happy and nice. It was a bit like Helen Mirren calmly disposing of bodies in Red 2, and it was funny for the same reason.

The regeneration scheme worked and they gradually acquired a set of new neighbours of the aspirational class that the Government would have approved of.

The number of characters grew but the cast did not and the couple took on the additional roles effortlessly and seamlessly. In one superb scene, a BBQ, all the characters were on stage at the same time and were talking quickly to each other. This was exceptional quick-fire acting from Gemma Whelan and Sean Michael Verey and I was exhausted just watching them.

The brilliance of the piece was the way that it took an empty white stage, added two people (plus a little help from a third) and managed to conjure up something that exploded in many directions, any one of which would have been satisfying on its own. This is typical of Ridley and why I am such a fan of his work.

It was almost irrelevant that the cute Summer-frock wearing mother, Gemma Whelan, was rather better known as the woman warrior Yara Greyjoy in Game of Thrones, though that did make me respect her even more as an actor.

Piranha Heights at the Old Red Lion Theatre was delightfully weird

I was vaguely aware of the Old Red Lion Theatre having been to the pub downstairs (prior to a visit to nearby Sadler's Wells) but had never been there, or had a particular reason to do so. Then a chance conversation at another Philip Ridley play at the Arcola alerted me to Piranha Heights.

The Old Red Lion is conveniently close to Angel tube and that made it fairly easy to get there, despite being forced to work in Reading that day. I even had time to eat in the pub, a vegetarian Bombay Burrito, though I did get a little nervous over how long it took to arrive. It all worked out in the end.

The theatre was upstairs but the box office was downstairs, in corner of the bar, and I was able to swap my email for a ticket while waiting for my food.

More or less on the dot of 7:30 we were summoned upstairs. It was a rather orderly rush and my years of training for such events meant that I was among the very first up and so was able to bag the front row seat that I wanted.

My first thought was it was rather like the White Bear Theatre, but much bigger, with a rectangular stage surrounded on two sides with seats in an L-shape. The size, but not the shape, were similar to Pentameters. Or, to put it in other words, this theatre in a pub was similar to other theatres in pubs that I had been to.

The stage was set as a somewhat dated living room. Here we met a middle-aged man waiting for somebody. That somebody was his younger brother who, it transpired he had not seen for a some time. We also learned that they were in their Mother's flat, that she had just died and they both had designs on the flat.

Then, much like a JG Ballard novel, the normal became strange and then outright weird.

An awful lot happened and it would be difficult and unhelpful to try and describe all of if; so here are just a few highlights. The younger brother had brought along a young woman and a baby who he had just met and who we wanted to have living in the house. The young woman had an exuberant young man in tow, not the baby's father. She spoke Gibberish. The older brother's teenage son arrived, he was weird in his own right (he spoke to an invisible Jiminy Cricket character). The son and the boyfriend met with a series of whoops and discovered a shared passion for violence and each other. The baby ...

Through this the relationship between the brothers, and with their families, got more complicated too; such as the younger brother suggesting that his nephew loved him more than his father and that he (the nephew) was going to leave his dad and come and live with his uncle in the flat.

The story was fast and chaotic; probably like a ride on Nemesis if I was brave enough to know what that is like. It was exhilarating, thrilling and exhausting. And, like a theme-park ride, reached a natural ending, though this one left me thinking about what was going to happen next to the brothers and to the two young men. Perhaps it was more of a pause than an ending.

There was a question and answer session with the cast afterwards which I stayed for. This gave some insights to their approach to the production, such as doing some rehearsals without words to get the movements right (there was a lot of movement). It offered fewer clues as to what the play was actually about as the cast had different opinions, the brothers thought it was about them but the others disagreed.

It was certainly about the stories we tell each other and how many of these are not true and what that means. Did the son really see Jiminy Cricket, did the others mean it when they said that they believed that they did, and did he believe them when they said that they believed him? You get the idea.

Piranha Heights was a frighteningly deep and complex play which I was able to navigate safely thanks to the superb crew. The ride was a very rewarding experience.

Ghost From A Perfect Place at the Arcola Theatre was astonishing

I had good reasons for going to see Ghost from a Perfect Place at the Arcola and when I got there I discovered more good things that I was not expecting. As a result I had an exceptional evening, the sort of evening that I get only a few times a year of going to consistently good theatre. I'll try and explain why it was so good but I doubt that I will do it justice.

Ghost From A Perfect Place (or Ghost as I will now call it for brevity) came in a deluge of theatre trips that I was desperate to fit in before disappearing abroad on holiday for a couple of weeks. The only free slot I had was Friday and that meant a long return journey from Richmond to Dalston. Ghost already had a lot to live up to.

The trip to Arcola while fairly long was easy, the Overground could have been designed for me, and I got there in good time for a little something, coffee and cake, before the show before taking a beer in with me.

The Arcola does numbered seating now and I had booked myself in the front row of the central block. This is where I prefer to sit and whereas I could get there by being quick in the queueing this time I managed it by being quick in the booking. I find queueing easier than booking (that requires organisation) so I am probably going to have to get used to sitting somewhere else.

The play opened (and remained) in the kitchen of a flat that obviously been the scene of a fire.

Alone in the room was an old woman, and the first surprise of the evening was that the woman was none other than Madge (Sheila Reid) from one of my favourite TV shows, Benidorm!

An urgent ringing of the doorbell announced the arrival of a smartly dressed man. Once let in she realises who he is but it takes him sometime to recognise her.

He was an old-style villain in style of the Kray twins and the conversation soon turned to the old days.

The storytelling style was innovative, that is I had never seen it used before, with the characters acting out the scenes that they were talking about this. We learnt some interesting things about his brutal past and her former job as a cinema usherette from which she had earned the nickname "Torchie". This is when he realised who she was and why learnt the circumstances of their meeting.

The old lady had to leave but the man was waiting for somebody so he stayed. Just before the interval the girl he was waiting for arrived and she was soon by her two friends and fellow gang members.

After the beer break the mood got even darker as the women turned on the man while he laughed at them contemptuously and compared them unfavourably with people from his past. The girls then told him the story of their gang which was, another innovation, presented as something as a cross between a narrative poem and a church service with the two followers saying their equivalents of "amen" at the appropriate points. It was very different and very effective.

The story got even better too as we learnt more about the man's more recent past that had led him back to his roots and his more distant past and its links to the present day. I will not say more as I do not like to do spoilers so you will just have to trust me wham I say that the story was brilliant with lots more more twists and shocks. This was the first Philip Ridley play that I had seen and I made a note to look out for more.

The cast was superb too. At the centre of this was the ghost from the past, the former gangster played by Michael Feast who was fantastic with oodles of swagger and bravado.

To summarise all this, this was a great story told with some innovative techniques by good actors. And that is why I found it exceptional.

After the show I had a quick chat to the bloke sitting next to me but only because he had sat to me previously at another theatre. I also had a quick chat with Sheila Reid, once the Benidorm fans had got their autographs, to say how much I enjoyed her performance in this play and in Benidorm and to reminder that we had spoken briefly previously at the Old Vic.

These chats were the icing on the considerable cake but even without them this was an astonishingly good evening at the theatre.