TWO COME HOME at the King’s Head Theatre

★★★★★

“raw emotion is never far from the surface in this attention grabbing show”

Billed as an exploration of the realities of being gay in an impoverished rural community, ‘Two Come Home’ is a gut-wrenching drama that is a huge credit to its highly talented queer cast and crew.

Previously performed in Brighton, the show has an unmissable four-day run at the King’s Head Theatre, Islington as part of the Camden Fringe Festival. There’s a compelling, raw energy to this piece by Joe Eason which is set on the wrong side of the tracks in small town, deep south America.

The multi-talented Eason also co-stars in his own play and has in addition both designed the show and composed its haunting music. Kirsten Obank-Sharpe’s direction is meticulous, keeping the focus sharp throughout. She is also a member of an on-stage three-piece band, together with Cam Southcott on violin and Elizabeth Cleone Hopland on cello.

Evan’s dad has been jailed for ten years for violent crime. His gay son is clinging to the wreckage of a broken affair that ended a decade earlier. His mum (Nicola Goodchild in a wild performance full of sad energy) is a dysfunctional addict who has never learnt to love him. What happens when Evan’s ex (Ben Maytham) walks back into Evan’s life and will love rekindle in these most desperate of times?

As Philip Larkin famously wrote, ‘they fuck you up, your mum and dad’. Besides the gay love story, there’s an important second narrative here about the failure of familial love. Come what may, raw emotion is never far from the surface in this attention grabbing show. There’s plenty of that strength of feeling in the furiously frustrated language the characters exchange, and there’s wit and poetry too.

Joe Eason’s design is simple and to the point, with some effective lighting adding to the atmosphere generated by the off-key, melancholic score. A highpoint was his voice and guitar rendition of a beautiful song about love lost. The chemistry between the two estranged lovers is electric, helped by intimacy coaching from Marina Cusi Sanchez. James Burton blisters with toxically dangerous energy as Caleb Nicolson.

At the end it’s left to a woman cop (a deft and witty performance by Hannelore Canessa-Wright) to act the Greek chorus and deliver a final message: ‘Just drop the drama! Happiness is a choice’.

I’m not able to report why the playwright chose the American rust bucket setting. This Brokeback vibe has big screen reasonance. The show’s publicity cites its relevance to young audiences. Do similar dramas play out in rural Norfolk or Wales today?

TWO COME HOME at the King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed on 15th August 2024

by David Woodward

Photography by J. R. Dawson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE PINK LIST | ★★★★ | August 2024

ENG-ER-LAND | ★★★ | July 2024

DIVA: LIVE FROM HELL! | ★★★★ | June 2024

BEATS | ★★★ | April 2024

BREEDING | ★★★★ | March 2024

TURNING THE SCREW | ★★★★ | February 2024

EXHIBITIONISTS | ★★ | January 2024

DIARY OF A GAY DISASTER | ★★★★ | July 2023

THE BLACK CAT | ★★★★★ | March 2023

THE MANNY | ★★★ | January 2023

TWO COME HOME

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★★★★

“Liz Elvin doesn’t give us theatrical fireworks, but something much more subtle and involving”

What has been described as ‘the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history’ is the focus of this interesting new play by Zannah Kearns. It is drawn from Nick Wallis’ seminal 2021 exposé of the Post Office Horizon scandal. It tells the story up to 2019, when after a joint legal action, over 500 Postmasters and Postmistresses were granted a settlement of £58 million.

The play was commissioned by the University of Reading and was developed with help from their Law Department. It is performed by Reading’s RABBLE Theatre which has a special remit to ‘tell local stories of national significance’. Playwright Kearns based her story on her interviews with one Post Mistress called Pam Stubbs who modestly says she ‘got really cross’ when she first noticed false transactions on the screen of the branch she was running from a Portakabin near Reading.

A cast of four include seasoned performer Elizabeth Elvin as Pam Stubbs. Stubbs was unique amongst the other litigants in that she kept meticulous records which enabled the Horizon system to be directly challenged. Liz Elvin doesn’t give us theatrical fireworks, but something much more subtle and involving. We see a mild-mannered woman who is genuinely puzzled by the total and catastrophic upending of her life because the Post Office stubbornly refused to admit their software was faulty.

Laura Penneycard, Sabina Netherclift and Fayez Baksh deftly take multiple roles as customers, shop assistant, barrister, judge and other litigants. The play is performed in a ‘black box’ space for which Caitlin Abbott has designed a set of wheeled units which are moved around by the cast.

From ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ to TV’s ‘Crown Court’, court room scenes are bread and butter drama. ‘Glitch’ features some gripping moments drawn directly from the legal transcript. For me, some of the other writing and direction by Gemma Colcough and Gareth Taylor still has a somewhat sketchy quality about it. I wanted a little more drama and less understatement, even if some of it (say) came in the form of techniques like projected graphics.

The founders of RABBLE describe this show as ‘stage one’ for the piece. They hope that with more financial support it will evolve more fully. This worthwhile and involving play certainly deserves a much wider showing.

TWO COME HOME at the King’s Head Theatre

★★★★★

“raw emotion is never far from the surface in this attention grabbing show”

TWO COME HOME at the King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed on 15th August 2024

by David Woodward

Photography by J. R. Dawson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

TWO COME HOME

TWO COME HOME

GLITCH at the Minghella Theatre

★★★★

“Liz Elvin doesn’t give us theatrical fireworks, but something much more subtle and involving”

GLITCH at the Minghella Theatre

Reviewed on 2nd July 2024

by David Woodward

Photography by Annabel Crichard

Recommended Show reviews from June:

GLITCH

GLITCH