WALKING EACH OTHER HOME

Old Red Lion Theatre

★★★

“a thoughtful and heartfelt piece”

Tim Graves’ Walking Each Other Home opens by inviting us into a set that immediately establishes the emotional terrain of the play: a modest family living room designed by Jason Marc-Williams and Noah Cousins. Beside the sofa sits a cluster of cards featuring family members, a simple but effective visual device that hints at memory, loss and fractured relationships before a word is spoken.

We first meet Frank Maloney, played by Christopher Poke, an elderly man living with early-stage dementia. Poke gives Frank a layered and deeply sympathetic presence. At times bewildered, at times lucid, Frank drifts between confusion and clarity, uncertain of the day, the moment, or even who is standing in front of him.

Into this uneasy domestic space arrives Frank’s son Michael, played by Edward Fisher, returning from Peru with a backpack and years of unresolved pain. From the outset, we understand that Frank often believes Michael is dead, a heartbreaking symptom of his condition. Their reunion is therefore not one of warmth but of collision: old wounds resurface immediately, and bitterness between father and son dominates the room. Michael’s sexuality, and Frank’s historic discomfort with it, becomes one of the central fault lines of the drama.

What emerges between them is not only estrangement but an ongoing contest. Father and son seem locked in a competitive game for emotional ground: who has been more wronged, who deserves understanding, who can wound the other first.

Graves begins the play at a high emotional pitch, with anger and trauma already fully ignited. While this gives the opening urgency, it also leaves limited room for the tension to build further. Much of the play therefore sustains the same heightened emotional register rather than developing through shifts in rhythm or surprise.

The production finds welcome contrast in Sandeep Singh, Frank’s live-in carer, played with warmth and precision by Amrik Tumber. Sandeep provides much-needed lightness through dry humour, wit and emotional intelligence, and many of the play’s jokes land sharply and effectively. Sandeep also acts as a mirror to Michael. Where Michael has travelled across the world searching for peace and belonging, unable to find acceptance at home, Sandeep embodies a quieter certainty rooted in family, responsibility and inner balance. Their contrast is one of the play’s most interesting dynamics.

Frank frequently speaks of “visitors” and seeing other people in the room. Whether these figures are hallucinations, memories or something more spiritual is left intriguingly open. Combined with Michael’s interest in Amazonian shamanism and Sandeep’s Sikh faith, these moments give the play an ambitious metaphysical dimension.

There are scenes of real beauty here. Poke is especially moving when Frank confronts his own reflection and no longer recognises himself. Tumber also shines in moments of blunt honesty and tenderness. Fisher captures Michael’s pain convincingly, though the character can feel more symbolic than fully grounded.

Marc-Williams’ direction handles the emotional themes with sincerity, and the play’s core concerns are compelling: intergenerational trauma, forgiveness, queer identity and the need for support systems beyond blood ties. At times, however, the script leans too heavily into repetition, restating motivations rather than trusting the audience to infer them. Some monologues embrace a heightened poetic theatricality that can occasionally feel at odds with the play’s grounded emotional realism.

Even so, Walking Each Other Home remains a thoughtful and heartfelt piece – one about reconciliation, memory and the difficult but necessary work of learning how to forgive. For all their flaws and pain, each of its characters is ultimately reaching toward hope.

WALKING EACH OTHER HOME

Old Red Lion Theatre

Reviewed on 30th April 2026

by Nasia Ntalla

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

WALKING EACH OTHER HOME

WALKING EACH OTHER HOME

WALKING EACH OTHER HOME