THE POLTERGEIST

Arcola Theatre

★★★★★

“Davison’s performance is a tour-de-force”

The Poltergeist, by award-winning playwright Philip Ridley, is an extraordinary piece of storytelling which will haunt you long after you leave the theatre. Strap yourself in for this is a rollercoaster of a ride. Lone actor, Louis Davison, plays all the characters, including the protagonist Sasha – a former art world prodigy – at breakneck speed.

In the world of the play, Sasha has fallen from his former artistic fame and glory and now shares a flat with his boyfriend Chet in the East End of London. It is here that he battles addiction, paranoia and navigates dysfunctional family dynamics. Having been something of a one-hit wonder as a teenager, he is now tortured by an agonising sense of artistic failure. But is any of this truly justified in a surface level, social media-driven, celebrity obsessed art world? The mercenary, superficial nature of modern-day art culture is exposed to great comic effect in the scene where Davison continually switches between playing Sasha and a female American art dealer/promoter out on the prowl for artistic young blood to help line her own pocket.

Davison’s performance is a tour-de-force. The vocal and physical speed, energy and vigour with which he shifts between six different characters, is a feat to behold. The fine craft of an actor at the height of his game is on full display here. Much credit too must go to the director, Wiebke Green. The general tempo of this piece may feel unrelentingly fast – perhaps too much for some – but this is something that is clearly reflected in the ‘in-yer-face’ nature of the script and the rhythm of the writing. Green does not shy away from doing it justice and ramps it up to the ninth degree (there are few dramatic pauses or silences in this work); this helps to charge the juxtaposed slower paced, more tender later scenes in the play with even more emotional resonance. Also, the creative decision to completely strip back and do without any set or props works well and makes for a more raw and powerful audience experience.

Social conventions and etiquette are frequently juxtaposed with Sasha’s dark sense of wit and his deeper search for honesty and truth. Of his niece’s birthday party, Sasha wittily says, ‘This is where Hieronymus Bosh meets the Barbie doll.’ Ironically, it is at his niece’s birthday party where Sasha eventually experiences an emotional healing of sorts at the end of his long and tortuous journey. ‘The surface is waterlilies but underneath it’s all sharks and formaldehyde’ is another stand out line in this play. Clearly this is an artistic reference to Monet and Damien Hirst but it’s also a metaphor for the disturbing truths that lie underneath a façade of superficial, social niceties in many families.

This is a play about memories and the haunting nature of past choices. But at its emotional core, it is a play about grief. Ridley’s trademark darkly comic tone is evident through much of the storytelling but as the narrative propels us towards the final scenes, there is a note-perfect beautiful tenderness that is haunting in and of itself.

THE POLTERGEIST

Arcola Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd September 2025

by Tim Graves

Photography by Simon Annand

Previously reviewed at this venue:

RODNEY BLACK: WHO CARES? IT’S WORKING | ★★ | September 2025

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY: THE MUSICAL | ★★★★ | August 2025

JANE EYRE | ★★★★★ | August 2025

CLIVE | ★★★ | August 2025

THE RECKONING | ★★★★ | June 2025

IN OTHER WORDS | ★★★★ | May 2025

HEISENBERG | ★★★ | April 2025

CRY-BABY, THE MUSICAL | ★★★★★ | March 2025

THE DOUBLE ACT | ★★★★★ | January 2025

TARANTULA | ★★★★ | January 2025

THE POLTERGEIST

★★★

“the young actresses all show impressive range in their multi-rolling”

Flush is a cross section of one night in the women’s toilets of a Hackney club. Fast paced and wide-ranging, it offers a kaleidoscopic view of the female hivemind anno 2025.

With fourteen characters, it’s an ambitious script. Most are part of groups, including a flock of giddy underaged girls, office workers out on the town, and a cow-themed hen do. April Hope Miller, who also wrote the piece, shines as a diabolical maid of honour, while Ayesha Griffiths harvests many a laugh as a woman who is considering how to rid herself of her disappointing Hinge date. Jazz Jenkins convincingly portrays the play’s central character, Billie, a recent immigrant from the US who gets assaulted by the manager at her new job. Aided by quick-changing lights (Jack Hathaway) and club-inspired music (Yanni Ng, Jacana People), director Merle Wheldon crafts a cinematic depiction of Billie’s trauma-and-ketamine-induced haze, as clubgoers swirl around her in fast motion. In Flush, there are as many themes as characters, and perhaps there are too many of both – that being said, the young actresses all show impressive range in their multi-rolling.

The play’s central premise is the singularity of women’s toilets as a space that enables raw interactions between women from all walks of life. In the dialogue, references to the characters outside of the bathroom effectively conjure up a world beyond the stage, which underlines the physical distinctiveness of the female lavatories. But how, and why, these toilets and that wider world differ remains underexplored in the script, leaving the question of space and separation somewhat neglected. Additionally, I was surprised that, despite the inclusion of a trans character, the script did not address the question of who ‘belongs’ in the ‘women’s’ bathroom, an issue which has become increasingly debated in recent years and would lend the piece more urgency.

On stage, there is a similar lack of precision regarding the female toilet as a physical space. The omission of walls and doors from the three toilets on stage preserves visibility, but the difference between the inside and the outside of a cubicle is crucial, exemplified the various characters that ‘hide’ in the toilet. This separation within the lavatory could have easily been created through lights or careful blocking, but unfortunately, it’s mostly unclear where the cubicle ends and the sink area begins. Additionally, few of the characters use the lavatory for its primary purpose: the loos are generally used as seats, and no one washes or dries their hands, leaving the blocking static at times.

Perhaps overly ambitious, Flush offers an (early) afternoon of feminist entertainment that leaves you looking forward to your next visit to that complicated sanctuary known as the female bathrooms.

Tag Archives: Jack Hathaway

THE POLTERGEIST

★★★★★

Arcola Theatre

THE POLTERGEIST

Arcola Theatre

★★★★★

“Davison’s performance is a tour-de-force”