★★

“the entire cast do as much as they can with the raw tools they’ve been given”

Has the time arrived for a new vampire story? John Donnelly thinks so. But unfortunately, his newest play, Apex Predator, can’t quite seem to decide what it wants to be — a commentary on postpartum depression and psychosis, or a horror-comedy about vampirism as an allegory for modern life. In trying to straddle the line between both worlds, it never really succeeds at either.

From the opening moment, we are reminded that London is a city of violence. Not only that, but no one in this city is going to help you, not really. If you expect to survive, you’re going to have to be strong. But Mia (Sophie Melville) is hardly feeling strong at the moment — her newborn, Isla, won’t feed. Her son, Alfie (Callum Knowelden), is being bullied at school. And on top of it all, her husband Joe (Bryan Dick) is sometimes away for days at his secretive job. When he does come home, they mostly bicker. Mia is exhausted. The neighbours are a nuisance, throwing parties with loud music, forcing Mia to bounce Isla to sleep night after night, and Joe seems… well, entirely unbothered by this. If anything, he appears agitated that his wife is having a tough time. Enter Alfie’s new art teacher, Ana (Laura Whitmore), who may just be able to offer Mia a way forward. The premise is interesting, if a bit old hat. How do we protect ourselves, but especially our children, in a world that grows more dangerous by the day? It’s unfortunate that each idea in the script feels under-developed, spawning into some new thread, while we ache for the previous thread to be tied.

Blanche McIntyre’s direction is confusing at times. Moments that feel like they deserve a bit more room to breathe are quite rushed, namely Mia and Ana’s very first meeting. Mia has rushed to Alfie’s school, to assert her son’s right to defend himself — he’s bitten another child, which feels like a bit of a flat pun, given the subject matter — and Ana switches from critical school bureaucrat to close confidante in ten seconds or less. Some dialogue is played for uncomfortable laughs, when the topic at hand feels anything but funny. In one specific moment, Mia runs round and round in circles, trying to find an escape, when there’s a relatively obvious one in front of her — a door that someone else has walked in through, just moments before. Whether this is down to McIntyre or the production’s Movement Director, Ingrid Mackinnon, is difficult to say.

But there are bright spots here. Whitmore is excellent as Ana, despite her character’s somewhat unconvincing arc. Melville is fascinating to watch as she swings between clarity and madness. Truthfully, the entire cast do as much as they can with the raw tools they’ve been given. The lighting and sound design (Jack Knowles and Chris Shutt, respectively) work together quite synergistically, particularly in a very short scene during the second act that evokes a moment from a slick on-screen horror. It’s just a shame that the story as written doesn’t allow for more of these gorgeous vignettes. The set design (Tom Piper) is excellent making great use of a relatively small space, surrounded by imposing scaffolding. The claustrophobia, the grit of a city like London is keenly felt.

All in all, the potential is there. One simply wishes that Donnelly had — forgive me — sunk his teeth in a bit deeper.

BACKSTROKE

Donmar Warehouse

★★★

“Greig’s encapsulation of the sandwich generation – elderly parent to care for and young children too – is a masterclass in empathy and subtlety”

There’s a sign on the wall on the way into the Donmar theatre warning patrons about the use of herbal cigarettes in the production. There is no sign pre-figuring the far greater traumas the audience is about to experience: the indignity of death, the intrusions of humiliating healthcare, the cruel tricks of a failing brain.

Little wonder then that daughter Bo is keen on a swift departure for Beth, her mother, who has suffered dementia of late, and debilitating strokes.

Bo frets about everything, always has done, so she’s extra keen to convey to the nurses that her actions are merciful and not, as they occasionally hint, cruel and self-serving. Indeed, this was her mother’s repeated wish – pills, pillow over the face, nil by mouth etc.

She was a firecracker in her day, indomitable and difficult, full of life – not this half-inhabited skeleton.

Writer-director Anna Mackmin mines her own experiences to inform a difficult piece that leaps back and forth through time to capture scenes from a fractious mother-daughter relationship.

There are significant problems with the play, but the casting decisions mitigate many. Tamsin Greig as everywoman Bo and Celia Imrie as the feckless bohemian Beth paper over many a structural flaw. They are superb. Funny and touching and bracing. Greig’s encapsulation of the sandwich generation – elderly parent to care for and young children too – is a masterclass in empathy and subtlety.

Bo is dowdy, unkempt and frazzled, scratching out a life in the grout between vast slabs of thankless obligation. Her mother – a peacock in her day – has spent years pointing out her daughter’s shortcomings to the point where Bo has seemly embraced the criticisms in a grim homage. And yet, occasionally Beth (never “mum”) is an inspiration too, a source of joy and laughter.

Fittingly, designer Lez Brotherston’s stage has the operatic hospital bed on a raised stage, surrounded by medical paraphernalia and appearing more like a courtly throne. A step down and we’re in Beth’s ramshackle cottage, firmly frozen in the free-loving 1960s. Here she keeps her loom and her woven artworks. A vast black backdrop fills in some gaps with scratchy projections.

Unfortunately, the play – as baggy as Bo’s “Greenham Common” cardigan – has nowhere particularly to go with this set-up and offers few revelations beyond the Ab-Fab dynamic of selfish mother and attendant child.

There’s a certain shocking delight watching Celia Imrie swear like a trooper or provide a play-by-play recitation of her sexual antics, but this is always going to offer a diminishing return.

Director Anna Mackmin has failed to press writer Anna Mackmin on some key questions. Is it worth two hours? What do we learn? Does the play need another few minutes in the oven to be truly ready?

Her script captures scenes from their life when Bo is six, 18 and off to university (needy mum is desperate not to be left behind), in her 30s, 40s and so on, as though Beth’s failing brain is compiling a highlights reel. But once we have seen one flashback, we have seen them all, and the absence of progress ramps up the need for mawkish sentimentality as filler.

The saving grace is experiencing Tasmin Greig close up in the Donmar’s intimate space. She manages to find grandeur in the gruelling mundane and it is compensation enough.

APEX PREDATOR

Hampstead Theatre

★★

“the entire cast do as much as they can with the raw tools they’ve been given”

APEX PREDATOR

Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 31st March 2025

by Stacey Cullen

Photography by Ellie Kurttz

Previously reviewed at this venue:

APEX PREDATOR

APEX PREDATOR

APEX PREDATOR

BACKSTROKE

Donmar Warehouse

★★★

“Greig’s encapsulation of the sandwich generation – elderly parent to care for and young children too – is a masterclass in empathy and subtlety”

BACKSTROKE

Donmar Warehouse

Reviewed on 21st February 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Johan Persson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

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