No One Likes Us
Hen and Chickens Theatre
Reviewed – 2nd August 2019
★★★
“here’s something so heartfelt and earnest about this piece that you can’t help but be drawn in”
Everyone knows a Spider. By which I mean the central character of Andy Rothery’s two-hander, rather than any sort of actual arachnid. Spider is the kind of middle-aged working class white man you’d expect to find at your local Wetherspoons, complaining about the ‘bloody immigrants’, and insisting that ‘Brexit means Brexit’. And indeed, that is the initial impression we are shown of Spider, until No One Likes Us starts peeling back the anxieties and insecurities hiding underneath the bravado of the bile.
Left with only a handful of months to live due to cancer, Spider (Paul Dewdney) is full of resentment and defeatism – carting around an IV drip in his unkempt house and substituting Fosters for milk in his cereal. To make matters worse for him, his new nurse Jolana (Jennifer Evans) is not a proper English nurse, but instead Eastern European. Although at first this brings out a tirade of venom and vitriol from Spider, Jolana’s care and determination allows an unlikely friendship to form between the two. This dynamic facilitates a story full of guilt, fear, and redemption, that’s told with heart and humour thanks to a bold script from Rothery (also undertaking directorial duties) that firmly punches through any discomfort with the subject matter to create an atmosphere that invites the audience in rather than repels them.
Dewdney’s performance as Spider is astonishing – the initial acidity of his prejudices is slowly deconstructed to reveal a scared little boy, displacing his frustrations at a system that allowed his family to be split apart onto anyone who isn’t English, and Dewdney captures the complexity of his journey with a confidence and gravitas that keeps the audience firmly in the palm of his hand, even through some of the play’s more far-fetched and convenient plot points that occur in its second half. Dewdney coaxes out both laughter and tears at all the right moments, leaving nary a dry eye by the play’s climax.
Evans, too, does a sterling job, but is given considerably less material to work with, instead being relegated to just listening to Spider and feeling sorry for him for the majority of the play. The extent to which Jolana is under-written is only made more noticeable by how well-developed Spider is, and leaves you yearning for more balance in the piece. Her only plot thread – her need to get a good recommendation from Spider for her boss to help with achieving her nursing qualification – is dropped without mention about twenty minutes in, leaving her only to exist as a vehicle for Spider’s redemption.
There’s an argument to be made that No One Likes Us shouldn’t be sympathising with and excusing the attitudes of racists, and it certainly shouldn’t be the responsibility of those being persecuted to help said racists see the error of their ways. And yet, there’s something so heartfelt and earnest about this piece that you can’t help but be drawn in to its (slightly misguided) hopes of a kinder and more compassionate society.
Reviewed by Tom Francis
No One Likes Us
Hen and Chickens Theatre until 3rd August as part of Camden Fringe 2019
Previously reviewed at this venue:
Abducting Diana | ★★★½ | March 2018
Isaac Saddlesore & the Witches of Drenn | ★★★★ | April 2018
I Will Miss you When You’re Gone | ★★½ | September 2018
Mojo | ★★ | November 2018
Hawk | ★★★ | December 2018
Not Quite | ★★★ | February 2019
The First Modern Man | ★★★ | February 2019
The Dysfunckshonalz! | ★★★★★ | May 2019
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