Review: PEOPLE, PLACES AND THINGS, Trafalgar Theatre
Photo credit: Marc Brenner
Rarely do you see a piece of theatre that creates such an immense, immersive experience as you do in the extraordinary People Places and Things, which returned to the West End this week. It assaults your ears, eyes, and your mind with its themes of breakdown, addiction, and the struggle to cope with the real world outside. The soundscape vibrates through you, the lighting and projections dazzle and deceive, and the action swings from moments of calm reflection to dramatic madness in seconds to create a world that makes you feel their addiction to drugs and alcohol. It does not, however, quite make you feel as one character says that “people who aren’t addicted to anything are missing out!”
Emma (or Lisa, or Sarah or Rachel, the alternative names she responds to) is an actress who admits she is useless at being herself. We meet her losing her role in the play The Seagull, and she quickly descends into a drug fuelled escape as she attempts to check in to a rehabilitation centre. Duncan Macmillan’s wonderful script punctuates the dark plot with moments of brilliant humour which reveal more about the characters, like when we realise that she is talking to her mother on the phone or when she explains she took ”speed to balance me out!”
First staged in the West End in 2015 with a UK tour and Broadway production in 2017, the updated script with references to Ukraine, Trump, Brexit and Covid is given a deeper visceral lancing edge that we are all grappling with an ever-changing difficult world. Addiction is a scary escape, a downward spiral into an abyss. We all stare into it to some extent but here we see those desperate attempts from the fallen to escape their own demons. It could be quite difficult to watch but the writing and more importantly the performances throughout are so vibrant and compelling that it is engaging, moving and ultimately redemptive.
Denise Gough reprising the role she originated is simply magnificent. Her physicality is extraordinary as she experiences the effect of the cocktail of drugs she has consumed. You can see she can’t quite control her own limbs as she checks in to begin detoxing but we can also hear she is an intelligent woman and sense that there are hidden secrets that are the route cause. It is compelling, authentic and totally believable. It is something of a relief to see Gough smile with joy at the end in response to the rapturous applause to affirm that it’s just a brilliant performance.
Indeed, the whole cast are wonderful in support and despite the leading role, there is an ensemble feel to the play with everyone playing a part in the creation of narrative. Sinead Cusack plays three roles who, through Emma’s eyes, appear to look the same, the cool calm Doctor leading the process, the twenty-one-year recovering therapist Lydia, and Emma’s despairing Mum. She brings a quiet authority to each in sharp contrast to Emma’s energetic desperation and the dynamic between them is touching and scary at the same time. Kevin McMonagle is equally impressive as first, the manic Paul who finds God, and then Emma’s Dad who is exasperated by her behaviour. Emma finds two allies in her recovery , firstly Danny Kirrane as the caring Foster (seven years in recovery) and then Malachi Kirby as the latest recovery graduate, Mark. Both give a sense of the vulnerability of a recovering addict but also the care and support for a fellow addict. The rest of the cast each get their moment in explaining their addiction in “practice” sessions or creating Emma’s drug fuelled horror moments.
Beautifully set in Bunny Christie’s white box with the audience on stage adding to the intimacy and reflective nature of the content, and slickly staged with each change of scene cleverly created with an extraordinary underscore by Matthew Herbert and Tom Gibbons - it simply one of the most engaging pieces of theatre of the last decade. The settings are stripped back with just enough props to suggest each scene with medical cabinets full of drugs, a karaoke machine for the graduation party and a fluffy orange topped pen on return to her childhood bedroom. Jeremy Herrin’s direction sets up the contrasts in characters and shifts in gear to great effect.
It is easy to see why this production won ‘Best Actress’ and ‘Best Sound’ in the 2016 Oliviers (with nominations for ‘Best New Play’ and ‘Best Lighting Design’) and it makes a welcome return to the West End where it feels stronger and more relevant than ever. The solution to addiction is to avoid the ‘People, Places and Things’ that triggered the desperate search for escape but here is a play that through its cast, its setting and its contents is itself addictive and like Denise Gough, if you enjoyed it in 2015, you must surely be addicted to see it again and if you missed it then, you must catch it now at the lovely Trafalgar Theatre.
***** Five stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
People, Places and Things plays at the Trafalgar Theatre until 10 August, with tickets available here.