Tag Archives: Luke Davies

CANDY

★★★★

White Bear Theatre

CANDY

White Bear Theatre

★★★★

“a truly enthralling seventy minutes of theatre about love and addiction”

Can love truly conquer all? Candy, the stage adaptation of Luke Davies’ novel about love and heroin addiction, would argue it cannot. Director and co-adaptor Kate Elliott along with star and co-adaptor Freya James, have managed to deliver something truly special with this piece on the spiral of addiction and co-dependence.

When Dan and Candy meet, it is quite a typical boy meets girl. They fall in love. They want to share everything — every moment, every experience… including Dan’s budding dependence on heroin. What follows is a slow, but steady descent into sickness, desperation, and constant heartbreak that threatens to destroy them both.

Freya James delivers a stunning performance as the titular character, Candy, as well as a host of other characters who inhabit this universe — her snap transformation between Candy and Candy’s mother is particularly impressive. Ed McVey shines as well — he brings a softness to Dan, a character who might easily slip away as cold and self-interested. Instead, we thoroughly empathise with him. We want so badly for both of them to get better, to work it out, even though ultimately, we know they can’t.

The movement direction is truly a standout in the production. Co-movement directors Laure Bachelot and Alexandria McCauley have truly crafted something that deals sensitively with the subject matter at hand. When you’re dealing with stage-craft around drug use and sex, it would be all too easy to lean into the gratuitous, to shock your audience into submission. Instead, Bachelot and McCauley ensure that Candy and Dan’s actions always tell us just enough about what’s going on. The implication is sometimes more haunting than the visceral visual, and it is clear that this creative team understand that.

Praise must also be given for the set and lighting design (Kate Elliott and Cameron Pike, respectively). Though incredibly stripped back, once again the restraint only adds to the impact of the story. Elliott’s framework of PVC pipes lined with soft blue tube lights and draped with sheer, white sheets gives the space just enough structure, while also allowing intimate asides for both of our protagonists. With some soft lighting from behind the sheer sheets, we can watch as some of the most uncomfortable moments unfold. There are no shortage of occasions where we feel like we’re watching something we shouldn’t be privy to, but these moments behind the curtain, these silhouettes are particularly affecting.

What could allow this excellent piece of theatre to soar to the heights that it is absolutely capable of reaching? A slightly deeper introduction to Candy and Dan. Their meeting feels like it passes a touch too quickly. We’re thrust into the beginning of their shared addiction, but not given enough of their initial romance to help us invest into their relationship. They do love each other, even if that love turns toxic, that much is obvious — but the narrative would benefit from showing us more of why that love endures to begin with.

Candy is a truly enthralling seventy minutes of theatre about love and addiction, which holds its subjects and its audience with sensitivity and respect. Its a gorgeous exploration of an important subject, and it should not be missed.



CANDY

White Bear Theatre

Reviewed on 5th June 2025

by Stacey Cullen

Photography by Kate Elliott

 

 


 

 

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

HAUNTED SHADOWS: THE GOTHIC TALES OF EDITH NESBIT | ★★★ | January 2025
UNTIL SHE SLEEPS | ★★★ | November 2024
SEVEN DAYS IN THE LIFE OF SIMON LABROSSE | ★★★½ | October 2024
THE BOX | ★★★ | July 2024
JUST STOP EXTINCTION REBELLION | ★★★ | February 2024
I FOUND MY HORN | ★★★★ | February 2023
THE MIDNIGHT SNACK | ★★★ | December 2022
THE SILENT WOMAN | ★★★★ | April 2022
US | ★★★★ | February 2022
MARLOWE’S FATE | ★★★ | November 2021

 

 

CANDY

CANDY

CANDY

FAT JEWELS

★★★★★

The Hope Theatre

FAT JEWELS at The Hope Theatre

★★★★★

Jewels

“The space is wonderfully navigated, a clear indication of the quality of Luke Davies’ direction”

 

The smell of late night takeaway wafts through the space as we enter the living room of a flat on a South Yorkshire council estate. Pat has been having violent dreams and they are making him scared of himself. When he meets Danny, a family friend of his mums in the pub, Danny invites him back to his flat to implement a tailored therapy course that he assures Pat will heal him, but this is a sinister sort of therapy involving violence and cricket bats, and Pat isn’t allowed to leave.

The script is fantastically crafted, awfully inevitable yet still pumped with a claustrophobic sense of suspense. Joseph Skelton, the play’s writer, is a clear talent, mixing humour with darkness and presenting a narrative of desperate manipulation and complete abuse of power and trust.

Both characters are beautifully layered, lonely and confused and in crisis, in a climate where male mental health issues are notoriously under discussed and masculinity is defined by power. Robert Walter plays Danny, a man who is so fragile he is dangerous. Pat is played by Hugh Train, wide-eyed with the hope and optimism of this therapy, this friendship, later jaded and darker. Walters and Train deliver faultless performances, both as a pair and individually, at ease onstage, never dropping the pace for a moment.

The design is beautifully thought through, detailed and coherent, tied together by the repeating red of the furniture, the lampshade, a ketchup bottle, a sleeping bag. The space is wonderfully navigated, a clear indication of the quality of Luke Davies’ direction.

This is a brilliant piece of theatre, well-written, well-executed and unapologetically dark, investigating masculinity, mental health and abuse with an unflinching depth.

 

Reviewed by Amelia Brown

Reviewed – 5th July 2018

Photography by Laura Harling

 


Fat Jewels

Hope Theatre until 21st July

 

Related
Previously reviewed at this venue
My Gay Best Friend | ★★★★★ | January 2018
Adam & Eve | ★★★★ | May 2018
Cockamamy | ★★★★ | June 2018

 

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