NOOK

Riverside Studios

★★

“The play scratches the surface of too many things, and is ultimately frustrating in its lack of resolution or revelation.”

Cameron Corcoran’s play, “Nook”, opens with an emotive monologue. A very loose paraphrase of the ‘Three Little Pigs’ fable, although there are now four of them and the littlest seems to be in as much danger from the other pigs as from the big bad wolf. We are not supposed to know yet who the teller of the tale is, but they are clearly a damaged soul, and we look forward to the ensuing narrative during which, we hope, the deliberately ambiguous prologue will become clear.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Not really. The setting is the family home in which four estranged, adopted siblings congregate following the funeral of their mother. Not for any sort of wake or show of respect, however, but to read the will (but let’s ignore the dubiously erroneous timing of this ritual for now). None of them have much affection for the deceased matriarch, and even less affection for each other. The stage is set for tensions to surface and past traumas to knock on the door threatening to ‘blow the house down’.

First up is Kenny (Daragh Cushen), the eldest son who believes he has escaped his working-class background by marrying Sarah (Zannie Benfield), the queen of snobbish put-downs. Younger brother Tom (played by Corcoran himself) is hot on his brother’s heels with fiancé Maya (Lucy Allen) even hotter on his. Not so fast moving is the socially awkward Phillip (Jack Sunderland). He still lives in the family home, so he hasn’t had as far to come, although he arrives with plenty of emotional baggage and unwarranted apologies. Last but not least is black sheep of the family, Beth (Lara Deering). A sheep in wolf’s clothing? She’s certainly no sacrificial lamb as she holds her own against the ensuing acerbic squabbles.

The dialogue is quite enigmatic. Not just difficult to interpret, but hard to follow and near impossible to swallow. Anguished mini-monologues spring from nowhere while non-sequiturs lead nowhere else. There is little logical flow to the narrative which capsizes any potential tension before it can even cast off.

The piece addresses a hotch-potch of issues: class divide, adoption, sexual and emotional, abuse, false memory, domestic violence and incest are a few of them. But the storms whipped up from the past blow in too many directions. Occasionally even the cast seem a little unsure of the material and too often Pinteresque pauses come across as fumbled lines. The performances are solid, nevertheless, even if the characterisation isn’t always convincing. Except for Deering’s Beth – who drops a delicious bombshell late into the action – actions and reactions don’t ring true and the cyclical verbal fights have been written with inadequate care or connection. Which is a shame as the premise has the potential for intrigue, if only the atmosphere of the opening passage could be maintained.

Moments of humour help drive the action. Kenny’s contemptuous wife, Sarah, has some of the best lines which Benfield delivers with cool exasperation. Her growing incredulity as secrets are revealed is a joy to watch. Pivotal moments, though, are glossed over, and the secrets and traumas shared lose their impact. It is like we are denied access. Reya Muller’s direction mirrors this distancing with some awkward but perversely effective staging, often placing the actors apart as though sections of the space are cordoned off, like some unapproachably dark memory.

It’s all a bit of a mystery. We learn the contents of the mother’s will, but we never understand what led to her decisions. The play scratches the surface of too many things, and is ultimately frustrating in its lack of resolution or revelation. At just an hour long, “Nook” still has the feel of a scratch performance, despite an initial run at the Union Theatre last year. Hopefully, in time, it will dig deeper and gain focus, once it finds its niche.

NOOK

Riverside Studios

Reviewed on 23rd August 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Reya Muller

Recent reviews from this venue:

A MANCHESTER ANTHEM | ★★★★ | August 2025

HAPPY ENDING | ★★★★ | July 2025

DEAR ANNIE, I HATE YOU | ★★★★ | May 2025

THE EMPIRE STRIPS BACK | ★★★★★ | May 2025

SISYPHEAN QUICK FIX  | ★★★ | March 2025

SECOND BEST | ★★★★ | February 2025

NOOK

★★

“we are left with a mix of uncertainty and anticlimax”

Paul Corcoran has a lot of kids. It’s hard to keep up – there are at least eight, possibly nine. We only meet four of them during the two hours of Cameron Corcoran’s new play, “Dudley Road”. Even Paul’s long-suffering wife is absent. She’s busy producing another child down in the maternity ward, while hubby’s at home swigging whisky. Barely leaving his armchair he desperately tries to cling onto the remaining members of his family: not so much birds leaving the nest, but rats leaving a sinking ship. Not everyone gets out alive.

The premise is enticing. Paul (James Finnegan) left County Sligo in Ireland for London a decade or so previously. We know this because he repeatedly admonishes his daughter Anne (Anna Georgina) for aspiring to return. ‘There is nothing there’ we are frequently told, as though we are unaware of the sharp increase of Irish emigration in the 1980s, which is the context for Corcoran’s play. Against this backdrop, the family saga plays out over the next decade and a half in chronological fits and starts. Although the style is classic kitchen sink realism, it is not always easy to believe in the characters portrayed. Finnegan’s alcoholic patriarch dips predictably into bullyish rage, yet we never really see the despair and vulnerability behind his behaviour that would have drawn us in. An intimidating presence, it is how his children react to him that forms the backbone of the narrative.

Anne is the defiant elder sister using marriage to escape, even though she has already been kicked out of home. Georgina’s portrayal has a good grip of her dichotomy; torn between the desire to reject her father and the innate need to protect him – the latter constantly losing the battle. Then there is Michael. The characters need to age by over a dozen years, but when we first meet Michael, he is still a schoolboy. Cameron Corcoran (the writer is also cast in his own play) struggles to illustrate the initial youthfulness, adopting mannerisms completely at odds with his physicality. He redeems himself in the second act as an adult, silently strong and credibly dealing with the scars that his father inflicted on him.

Director Simon Pilling does little to drive the action. The slow pace of the delivery is further hindered by the scene transitions. The arrival of Padraic (Daragh Cushen) from Sligo, who claims to be an illegitimate son of Paul’s, is a spanner in the works but the subplot has little impact. The intended cliffhanger as we reach interval leaves us confused, and temporarily unsure whether it’s time to go to the bar yet.

The second act, though, picks up the pace. The baby’s cries we heard at the beginning of the play have now become twelve-year-old Claire (Charlie Culley). She has become the sole carer for her father, who is bedridden of his own volition, and still self-medicating with whisky. Culley is a breath of fresh air, skilfully portraying an ingenue forced to deal with issues beyond her years and depicting an astute survey into the often impossibly contradictory dilemmas of dealing with the disease of alcoholism.

Another chronological shift, however, brings the show into extra-time with an overlong scene tacked onto what we had assumed was quite a poignant finale. Loose ends are not quite tied up and, despite tragedies being revealed, we are left with a mix of uncertainty and anticlimax. Corcoran’s play touches on quite a few issues without really deciding which to focus on. There is a fine piece of writing in there, waiting for that decision.

Tag Archives: Daragh Cushen

NOOK

★★

Riverside Studios

NOOK

Riverside Studios

★★

“The play scratches the surface of too many things, and is ultimately frustrating in its lack of resolution or revelation.”