★★★★

“a highly watchable cast, delivering line after line of snappy dialogue”

Katherine Moar’s “Ragdoll” is inspired by the trial of Patty Hearst – the heiress turned actress, kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in the 1970s who was later convicted of working with them and being charged for armed robbery. Her defence lawyer, Francis Lee Bailey, lost the case despite putting forward the fact that she was coerced into it by her captors. Although the names have been changed, there is little to separate the fictional characters from the real-life ones (even the SLA is namedropped). So ‘inspired by’ is probably an understatement. The disguise is a very thin veil. There is no disguising at all, however, the sharpness of Moar’s writing in her thoughtful, thought-provoking, ingeniously structured and punchy new play.

The narrative is split between two pivotal points in the lives of our protagonists. In the late seventies, Holly (Katie Matsell) is awaiting trial for her role in the armed robberies. Her hotshot lawyer, Robert (Ben Lamb) sees it as a case to project his career into the major league. There is a lot of media attention, some of it unwanted and unwarranted. Robert has his own distractions, too, mainly in the shape of a hack journalist out to smear his name. We first meet the couple in the present day. They are estranged by now, but Robert (Nathaniel Parker) is calling in a favour from Holly (Abigail Cruttenden), hoping she can bear witness to his character and help clear him of allegations of an ‘inappropriate nature’. Holly is naturally resentful – having been ghosted and abandoned by Robert decades earlier. We are aghast at Robert’s confidence that borders on arrogance. Tensions and stakes are high, and emotions rise even higher, tempered by moments during which Moar leads us gently into ‘odd-couple’ comedy territory.

We never drift into familiar territory, however. Even if sometimes we think we might be heading that way. Whenever that happens, Moar repeatedly sticks the knife in with a twist, forcing us to look at things in a different way. The two time periods are separated, until further twists reveal how great and significant the overlap is between past and present. A fascinating dramatic device is at play here, which the cast pull off masterfully.

The characters are undoubtedly privileged but are played with a compassion that arouses our sympathy. Matsell’s nervous idealism as the younger Holly turns into the fury and resignation that Cruttenden portrays with a bubbling, volcanic strength. Lamb, as the rising star of the courtroom, hasn’t yet had his smooth confidence worn away by the knocks to his career, while Parker’s present-day Robert, however, clings onto this self-conviction by a thread. They are both victims in a way. Victims of changing times and attitudes as much as circumstance. “If I had died, people would like me more” quips Holly in retrospect, thankfully without sentimentality. Josh Seymour directs with a tight hand on the oscillating structure: the actors watching their other selves, engaging and reacting. Ceci Calf’s simple set, strewn with packing cases, is dominated by an expensive, cream leather sofa, rich in symbolism.

This is only Moar’s second play, but the dialogue has a veteran’s finely-honed shrewdness and insight, offering peep holes into social history as well as the human condition. Its context is specific, but the questions raised are far reaching. With a highly watchable cast, delivering line after line of snappy dialogue, “Ragdoll” is an absolute joy to watch. We barely have time to think about what we are supposed to be thinking about – there’s time to do that on the tube journey home. We know, though, that we have been in the presence of a writing talent to keep an eye out for.

THE WHITE CHIP

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★

“There is a lot of fun to be had along the way in this remarkable piece”

There’s an old joke that has been doing the rounds for quite some time now, that goes something along the lines of ‘quitting alcohol is easy… I’ve done it hundreds of times’. It is a very apt phrase for Steven, the protagonist of Sean Daniels’ profoundly autobiographical play “The White Chip”. Steven has relapsed many times; the titular ‘white chip’ is a token given to a newcomer or somebody returning to an ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ programme, signifying the beginning of a journey towards recovery and sobriety. There’s an obvious flippancy to the above one-liner, but like many jokes it is rooted in truth. Daniels knows that the best way to get a serious message across is to dress it up in fine humour, and in this respect, his play is the epitome of style. There are many laughs that, on close inspection, are dangerously close to the bone.

Steven tasted his first beer as a pre-teen. His first sip tasted terrible. The second wasn’t so bad, and by the third his love affair with booze began. Love affair? An abusive relationship. For much of his adult life Steven is a functioning alcoholic. He graduates, he creates a successful theatre company, gets married. He is riding high. In tandem, however, his marriage is on the rocks, he distances himself from his ailing parents, he loses his job. He is plunging low. We follow Steven through various trials, witnessing his tactics to keep his destructive drinking habit secret. Ed Coleman, as Steven, gets right to the core of the character, portraying him with striking realism. It is almost impossible to see where Daniels ends and Coleman begins – writer and actor becoming one and the same. Sentimentality is abandoned as Coleman recounts his tale, for the most part addressing the audience while at other times slipping into dialogue with the many people his tumultuous life affects. Mara Allen and Ashlee Irish take on these characters with brilliant and stylised multi-rolling: colleagues, drinking buddies and, with aching poignancy, the suffering parents. Allen’s portrayal of Steven’s mother – also a recovering alcoholic – is cutting and compassionate, extremely funny and ultimately moving.

But it is Coleman, with his chiselled physicality and expert hold on the text, that commands our attention. Daniels’ writing, which has the feel of an extended monologue, resonates with shades of a more family-friendly Hunter S. Thompson. Matt Ryan directs with a masterful eye on the essence of the piece. Allan and Irish continually orbit Coleman’s central character, pulling the anchor away from this desperate character, but eventually helping him find his moorings. Lee Newby’s stark set relies on simplicity: stacked chairs like a Manhattan skyline and a roving table are all that are needed to evoke the various locations, while Jamie Platt’s lighting throws us into the shadows of Steven’s mind only to repeatedly pull us into the glaring reality of his illness with the bright, cold lights of an AA meeting hall.

We learn a lot about the backstory, the lapsed Mormon background and thwarted ambitions. We gain little understanding, however, as to the reasons for Steven’s descent into dependency. But that is the fundamental point. The most common answer to the question of ‘how did it get this far?’ is invariably ‘I don’t know’. Daniels’ play makes no claims to address this. Instead, it addresses the fall out and, more importantly, the potential for recovery. Split into two halves, the balance favours the drinking days leaving us less time to appreciate the road to recovery. But Daniels makes that road more accessible, stripping away the barbed brambles of stigma. His brutal honesty and humour destroy any sense of shame. Fundamentally a true story, it is a heartfelt confession and, in a way, a love letter to those that helped him – in particular his own mother. At a crossroads in his life, Steven (and by extension Daniels) needs to make a decision to live or die. He calls his mother who steers him from the edge, keeps him on the phone for ten whole hours, and saves his life. Even if you haven’t come close to this sort of experience you cannot fail to be moved. But if you do relate to it personally in any fashion, it is authentically powerful, deeply moving and sad, yet steeped in hope.

There is a lot of fun to be had along the way in this remarkable piece, with affectionate jibes at religion and psychobabble. There is a slight tendency towards self-satisfaction towards the closing moments, but we can overlook that. “The White Chip” is a revelation. Intimate, honest, challenging, sensitive but funny too.

RAGDOLL

Jermyn Street Theatre

★★★★

“a highly watchable cast, delivering line after line of snappy dialogue”

RAGDOLL

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 14th October 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Alex Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue:

RAGDOLL

RAGDOLL

RAGDOLL

THE WHITE CHIP

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★

“There is a lot of fun to be had along the way in this remarkable piece”

THE WHITE CHIP

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 15th July 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Danny Kaan

Last ten shows reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

THE WHITE CHIP

THE WHITE CHIP

THE WHITE CHIP

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