SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
Southwark Playhouse Borough
★★★★
“There is an awful lot to absorb, but the company delivers the punches with refreshing jabs of comedy”
When Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ was published at the end of the 1960s, it quickly caught the imagination of the young generation and turned Vonnegut into an overnight sensation. An odd book, to say the least, it is both an antiwar novel and a science fiction. As a rite of passage, I remember giving it a go in my late teens, with limited success. Before seeing the stage show I brushed up on the synopsis and, on my advice, my partner read the Wikipedia summary. “How on earth are they going to stage this?” she asked just before curtain-up, succinctly echoing my own thoughts. Ninety-five minutes later, during an enthusiastic ovation, we have our answer. Eric Simonson’s adaptation is a remarkably creative piece of stage craft as it welds the fragmented narrative into a shape that pretty much resembles clarity.
The story centres on Billy Pilgrim (Patrick McAndrew), who has become ‘unstuck in time’. A character who is free from the illusion that one moment follows on from another. The past, present and future co-exist allowing him to flit from one to the other with ease. Thankfully the audience is given captions as to the ‘where and when’ for each scene – we would be lost without them. The story follows three decades (but not necessarily in the right order) of Billy’s life beginning with his time as a chaplain’s assistant during World War II during which he is captured and becomes a Prisoner of War. He survives the Allied firebombing of Dresden, and is later discharged with PTSD, spends time in a veterans’ hospital, marries, has kids, becomes a successful optometrist. But then he is abducted by aliens and taken to their planet – Tralfamadore – where he is kept as a zoo exhibit (whilst also impregnating a fellow abductee – a pornographic film star). Returning to earth he is reunited with his wife, survives a plane crash but is later assassinated while giving a speech about his time travels.
“All this happened… more or less” explains the narrator, enhancing the fantastical nature of the hero’s odyssey. In fact, there are three narrators, who also take on a ridiculous number of multiple roles that support Billy’s meandering fatalism. McAndrew wonderfully portrays the fish-out-of-water character with a mix of bemusement, nihilism, humour and philosophical insight that eventually cuts quite deep. Alex Crook, Ethan Reid and Sofia Engstrand play everyone else; impossibly switching between roles, locations and time. Often the indicators are tiny and the nuances subtle, but we never lose sight of who they are.
It is a truly collaborative enterprise. A juggling act with director Douglas Baker managing to keep all the balls in the air throughout. And alongside the fabulous four cast members, Baker’s video design is a fifth star of the show, the intricacy of which is rarely seen off the West End. Using both the back wall and a gossamer gauze downstage, the worlds the characters inhabit are brought to magical life. The timing is crucial, too, as the performers interact with the projections which are simultaneously enchanting and informative. It is relatively low-tech but, as they say, limitations breed ingenuity. An ethos that shapes the whole show. There is a shabby chic quality – a ramshackle atmosphere that is also extremely sleek. Like well-rehearsed chaos. We are reminded at times of The Goon Show with its mix of anarchic surrealism and rapid-fire nonsense. But beneath the humour the tragedy unfolds, until it is impossible to ignore the all-important messages laid out in a quite moving finale.
But it seems that humanity too often ignores them. Vonnegut’s story is a frightening loop. The atrocities that have gone before us are constantly being replayed. This theatrical revival is timely. There is an awful lot to absorb, but the company delivers the punches with refreshing jabs of comedy. We need to be on our toes, but with neither room nor time for distraction, this is an intensely captivating show.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
Southwark Playhouse Borough
Reviewed on 5th June 2026
by Jonathan Evans
Photography by Henry Hu
