★★★★

“Samuel Edward-Cook’s performance is a tour-de-force”

Behind a metallic, gauze curtain a figure paces back and forth. Shaven headed. His shadow follows him across the vertical wall of the translucent screen – a projected alter ego pursuing its prey, fuelling the claustrophobic motions of the man’s repetitive circuit. His behaviour is erratic yet painfully routine. It’s like watching a captive animal through the bars of a zoo’s enclosure.

A flash of brilliant white light releases him to tell his story. It’s a story that dominated the front pages and caught the public imagination during the summer of 2010. That of the major police operation across Tyne and Wear – the manhunt for fugitive Raoul Moat. The ex-prisoner was on the run for nearly a week after a killing spree, ending with a six-hour standoff with armed police and Moat’s suicide. It was a story that landed in the lap of journalist Andrew Hankinson whose subsequent book inspired Robert Icke’s brutal and challenging one-act play. The overriding word on our lips is ‘why?’

“Manhunt” doesn’t offer any answers, but it poses the question from every angle, looking at the horrific events through the eyes of the victims and the perpetrator, often begging us to ask which is which. Icke’s writing and direction steer the narrative in a cyclical fashion, swinging between flashbacks and the present. It is often Kafkaesque in its approach as Moat fights a system he believes has been against him since birth. Whether we are supposed to be or not, we are drawn into Moat’s own tragedy as much as his victim’s which is unsettling to say the least. Samuel Edward-Cook’s performance is a tour-de-force that reinforces this with a warped honesty as he tries to justify himself. All the while he is surrounded by figures from his past and present: the judges and juries that accuse him of hitting his daughter; the ex-partner; his childhood self, locked in his room by his unstable mother; the father he never knew; social workers; friends, accomplices and detractors, and most importantly his victims. A poignant extended blackout heightens a first-hand account from a police officer he randomly shot and blinded in a cold-hearted act of revenge.

The supporting cast who play the multiple roles are as equally compelling as Edward-Cook, if not as frightening. This could well have been a one man show along the lines of the recent ‘Kenrex’, which follows similar themes, but the ensemble here fleshes out the account and adds a distinct and welcome light and shade. There is occasional confusion during moments when we are unsure that what we are witnessing is in Moat’s mind or in reality. Hallucinations overlap real life too often, yet it all adds to the unease, and we are constantly left unsure who to believe. So rather than collude with anybody we end up trusting no one. An unsatisfactory and dangerous position to be in, but one that maybe Icke is trying to spotlight.

Danger is an undercurrent that bursts to the surface constantly. Edward-Cook’s manic, wild-eyed stare cements this. He is a drowning man watching his life flash before him. Azusa Ono’s lighting evokes the episodes with haunting atmosphere, from the coldness of a prison cell to the campfire warmth of his last hiding place in the Northumbrian countryside. Here Moat talks to fellow Geordie, Paul Gascoigne before confronting his estranged father and being consoled by a doting grandmother. It is all unreal, but it helps him unearth the truth of his nature. There is only one conclusion. Justice takes a back seat while cause and effect – action and reaction – take centre stage.

At the time, Moat was famously labelled a ‘callous murderer… end of story’. Which is arguably the case. This play appears to challenge that assumption, but Icke’s writing is as ambiguous as the history as he tries to dig deeper. But there is no avoiding the fact that Moat was a big, strong man who used violence against those who were weaker than him. He lied, he lacked control, and he tried to justify his actions that ruined and ended lives. It is not a good story. However, Icke turns it into a breath-taking piece of theatre. We might wonder why he chose to do so, but we are enthralled and disturbed by the experience, and the performances will stick in our minds for quite a while. A gripping production. End of story.

THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE

OSO Arts Centre

★★★★

“A heady mix of dialogue and monologue, the play is perceptive and dramatic but funny too”

Andrew Bovell’s play, “Things I Know To Be True”, is framed by a phone call. It is after midnight when the phone is ringing. Sixty-three-year-old Bob, the father of four grown up children and husband to Fran, hesitates. He fears picking up the receiver. He knows something is wrong. Someone he loves is in trouble. The four children, bathed in shadowy light, speak Bob’s fears aloud.

Cut to Berlin. A winter coat. A travel bag. And a broken heart. Rosie, the youngest child, is overseas but has decided to go back home. She has come to realise that ‘the things I know to be true’ is a very short list indeed. What follows is a heart-rending, heart-warming and intimate story of family life, family resilience, the passage from childhood to adulthood and much more. It is a cyclical narrative but spread over a year, split into four seasons and twelve chapters. Each season focuses on one of the child’s stories. Each season contains a crisis. The seasons merge into one and the focus becomes the whole family. Bovell’s writing is uniquely specific, yet every line is instantly relatable and universal.

Lydia Sax’s deeply moving interpretation latches onto this quality, keeping the play firmly within its small town, Adelaide setting while teasing out the domestic issues at its heart into an all-embracing story of love and loss. Fran and Bob are doting parents. They have invested everything in the next generation. Bob is aware now that his days are numbered as he spends them tending his rose garden having retired too early. Fran has spent a lifetime secretly saving enough money to build up a get-out clause from her marriage should she wish. But the children always have and always will come first. Rosie suffers a broken heart and finds it hardest to grow up. Her elder sister, Pip, is divorcing and abandoning her own two young children to shack up with a lover in Vancouver. Ben could face prison for fraud while Mark faces his own, very different transitions that throw his parents into further turmoil.

A heady mix of dialogue and monologue, the play is perceptive and dramatic but funny too. Tim Whatmough’s realistic set supplies the warmth of the home and garden backdrop while Jonny Danciger’s evocative lighting and sound design fractures this domesticity. The friction between the smooth and the harsh runs through the narrative – a conflict that the cast grapple with superbly. Christopher Kent gives us a brutally honest portrayal of the patriarch, Bob, forever surprising with his ability to swing from anger to compassion and back with authenticity. You can feel the chemistry between him and Michelle Robertson’s Fran. Equally opinionated, Robertson shows the vulnerability beneath the pragmatism with her nuanced portrayal. In more unsure hands Fran could come across as overly selfish and unaccepting. Jordan Stamatiadis, as the youngest sibling Rosie, mixes an ingénue’s wide-eyed desire to grow up with a need for protection. A strong performance that is matched by the others: Claudia Watanabe as duplicitous divorcee Pip who is closer to Daddy than Mummy, Nick Barraclough as Fran’s favourite, Ben and Andrea Boswell, as Mark who transitions to Mia as the seasons change. It is not an easy role, but Boswell pulls it off remarkably well with touching understatement.

“Things I Know To Be True” is steeped in equal amounts of realism and metaphor. The monologues that characters are given draw us away from the everyday into the abstract, and into the true thoughts of each individual. A truly ensemble piece where each is the protagonist. Memories overlap, and true emotions are often only revealed in letters, anecdote or snippets of song. Leonard Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ is a haunting leitmotif.

The play marks the first in-house production at the Old Sorting Office to have a full run. Let’s hope that it is not the last. It is a dynamic and assured production that hits home on many levels. We have laughed and we have also recognised parts of ourselves. And we have cried too. This is theatre at its emotive best. Subtly, quietly, naturistically and lyrically poignant. That is one thing I know to be true.

MANHUNT

Royal Court

★★★★

“Samuel Edward-Cook’s performance is a tour-de-force”

MANHUNT

Royal Court

Reviewed on 8th April 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

MANHUNT

MANHUNT

MANHUNT

THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE

OSO Arts Centre

★★★★

“A heady mix of dialogue and monologue, the play is perceptive and dramatic but funny too”