Stewart Pringle’s new play The Bounds, directed by Jack McNamara, arrives at the Royal Court fresh from a world premiere at Live Theatre, Newcastle. Another rising playwright and director duo featured as part of David Byrne’s inaugural season as Artistic Director, The Bounds is set in playwright Pringle’s hometown of Allendale during the 1553 Whitsun game of football. This version of the beautiful game isn’t the taut, sleek, millionaire-glossed version we know it to be today, but a violent, lawless game that unfolds over miles of territory and may produce fatalities. It is through this framing device that Pringle explores ideas of national divides, power, conquest and identity.

This play, which brands itself as a darkly comic tale with folk horror elements, has a bounty of ingredients that should have created a recipe for delight - whispers of witchcraft and scandal, superstition and portentous visions…

However, all of the promise of this strange show fails to materialise and the themes fail to knit together. By the final scenes of The Bounds, which feel like an inexorable series of rough epilogues, Pringle turns to a lot of telling rather than showing, stating the themes of the play that failed to surface naturally.

Although Pringle’s script fails to hang together comfortably as a whole, the dialogue between main characters Row and Percy are brilliant barbed and rich in character.

Ryan Nolan is the star player in this cast, and is well matched by Lauren Waine in their banter. Sparks fly between these two, and the very opening of the show does ramp up the excitement of the audience with a steady flow of laughs.

The secrecy and mystery of The Bounds, which we suppose constitute its ‘folk horror’, is ultimately mishandled and ends up being more aggravating than tantalising.

Prime example of this is the direction of Soroosh Lavasani as Samuel, a mysterious character whose illegible motivations are all the more baffling for his dialogue delivery and affected, declarative and breathy inflections. The function of this character is revealed so late into the play that his appearance on stage is nothing more than an annoyance for the majority of the performance.

The set design by Verity Quinn is intriguing in its simplicity – a rough and rugged patch of ground bursting through the confines of a black stage. The costume design also simply serves its purpose in establishing the period setting well, although perhaps some design elements could have been used to tie in some of the deliberate anachronisms of the script, which supposedly bring the action and the conflicts of the play into contemporary relevance.

This is a play with a unique premise and a lot of promise – a valiant punt from the Royal Court, but just misses the goal.

** Two stars

Reviewed by: Livvy Perrett

The Bounds plays at the Royal Court Theatre until 13 July, with further info here.