★★★★★

“crackles with emotional tension and twisted humour”

With a twisted title and premise, ‘The Pitchfork Disney’ grips you like a fever dream: disturbing, disorientating and wickedly thrilling. It’s a chocolate-coated nightmare that daring theatregoers will devour – if they can stomach it!

Adapted by Lidless Theatre from Philip Ridley’s 1991 play, ‘The Pitchfork Disney’ explores a tangled world of dependency, domination and stunted development. Set in an unassuming East End living room, we open with Haley and her twin brother Presley bickering over chocolate. This childlike reality soon strains as playfulness yields to violent imagery, apocalypse and self-medication. Their stories don’t add up. Why are there multiple locks on the door? Where are their parents? How old are they? Then Presley lets in an unexpected outsider, Cosmo, shattering their pretence and culminating in a shocking climax.

Produced by Zoe Weldon, Ridley’s 1991 script still packs a punch. The machine gun-like prose hammers the audience with a tongue-twisting intensity, highlighting a Daliesque surrealism. But it’s not oppressive: fractured by sharp wit and brooding poeticism, the audience is deftly allowed up for air in humorous and beautiful moments too.

Max Harrison’s direction is fantastic. You can immediately tell the cast has been expertly drilled as the streams of words roll off the tongue in a heady, breathless flood. The pacing is exquisite: one moment fervid, the next reflective, the expertly controlled flow creates tension between characters and in the unsaid. Harrison keeps up the shock factor, featuring realistic vomit and S&M attire. Though it’s perhaps a sad sign of the times that I didn’t find the climactic scene as shocking – whilst a clear and horrific violation, the media frequently exposes modern audiences to similar (and worse).

The unobtrusive lighting (Ben Jacobs), sound (Sam Glossop), and set/costume design (Kit Hinchliffe) rein in the sensory storm, keeping it grounded and making the turmoil even more impactful.

The combination of stripped back design and manic text really puts the pressure on the cast. And boy do they deliver! Ned Costello as Presley and Elizabeth Connick as Haley tear through Ridley’s script with razor-sharp precision, racing through lines without losing a single syllable. Their opposing styles sharpen their contrasting characters: Costello’s deadpan detachment masks a simmering strain, while Connick storms the stage in an anxious whirlwind. William Robinson’s Cosmo injects a refreshing normality with a devilish, untrustworthy edge. Matt Yulish’s Pitchfork adds rawness: the unsettling physicality and guttural, pained ‘song’ are particular highlights.

‘The Pitchfork Disney’ crackles with emotional tension and twisted humour. It’s by no means an easy ride, but it sure is stimulating and stunningly delivered. Anyone who fancies sinking their teeth into something more exotic will relish it – just read the content warnings first!

THE HISTORY BOYS at the Cambridge Arts Theatre

★★★★

“an enjoyable and important revival of a play that has become a modern classic”

Alan Bennett’s much-loved play celebrates the 20th anniversary of its National Theatre first performance with a new production and a national tour (Director Seán Linnen). The period is firmly established from the outset with walk-in music made up of 1980s bangers – Soft Cell, The Human League, Pet Shop Boys – and we hear more of this throughout the show (Sound Designer Russell Ditchfield).

The set (Grace Smart) is the outside of a grim grey building – Cutlers’ Grammar School for Boys, Sheffield – which when it revolves will let us into a classroom laid out with plain square tables and the ugliest red plastic, stackable chairs.

A line-up of eight boys enters performing rather nicely a close harmony, doo-wop number before breaking into their schoolboy characters. Music is an important part of this production (Musical Director Eamonn O’Dwyer), some of it embedded into the plot, at other times as entr’acte music during scene changes. The onus in the solo numbers falls on the vulnerable, questioning character of Posner (Lewis Cornay). Cornay’s made in heaven harmonies soar above the ensemble and his solo performance of Rodgers & Hart’s ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’ is truly beautiful. Not forgetting Yazdan Qafouri as Scripps playing the piano quite brilliantly too.

The plot centres on the differing teaching methods of the nearing-retirement Hector (Simon Rouse) and the newbie Irwin (Bill Milner) as they coach the eight sixth formers towards their Oxbridge entrance exams. But the importance of the play and the main interest lies in the developments of each character. Being teenagers, conversation revolves much around sex and we hear a blow-by-blow account of Dakin’s (Archie Christoph-Allen) conquest of the school secretary. But there is also common knowledge of Hector’s fondness for fondling the private parts of his pupils whilst they ride pillion on his motorbike home from school. Despite this being a period piece, the casual acceptance by the boys that this is acceptable behaviour, makes me extremely uncomfortable. It takes the words of the only female teacher Mrs Lintott (Gillian Bevan) – “a grope is still a grope” – to voice out loud that what Hector is doing is wrong. Bevan’s no-nonsense approach to the role allows us to believe that she alone is the wise one amongst the school staff. The Headmaster best described by Mrs Lintott as “a twat” is played perfectly in this manner by Milo Twomey – approaching Basil Fawlty levels of hysteria when roused.

Two important intimate scenes: Posner looks for solace from Hector and Dakin’s attempt to mislead Irwin lack the necessary poignancy for full effect. It is the schoolboy ensemble that is most impressive – the natural chatter between classes and the laddish hijinks – and Timms (Teddy Hinde) stands out of the crowd with just the right amount of cheek and arrogance. A showstopper number of Stand and Deliver despite a lot of banging, stamping and chair-fighting lacks sufficient punch (Movement Director Chi-San Howard). Amplification of the singing might help.

The biggest laugh of the night comes from Rudge’s (Ned Costello) assertion that “History is just one fucking thing after another” claimed with a down to earthiness that, after nearly three hours on stage, this feels just about right.

This is an enjoyable and important revival of a play that has become a modern classic but at times, the highs don’t quite reach high enough and the emotional parts don’t quite reach deep enough.

THE PITCHFORK DISNEY

King’s Head Theatre

★★★★★

“crackles with emotional tension and twisted humour”

THE PITCHFORK DISNEY

King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed on 2nd September 2025

by Hannah Bothelton

Photography by Charles Flint

Recently reviewed at this venue:

THE PITCHFORK DISNEY

THE PITCHFORK DISNEY

THE PITCHFORK DISNEY

THE HISTORY BOYS at the Cambridge Arts Theatre

★★★★

“an enjoyable and important revival of a play that has become a modern classic”

THE HISTORY BOYS at the Cambridge Arts Theatre then UK tour continues

Reviewed on 1st October 2024

by Phillip Money

Photography by Marc Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE HISTORY BOYS

THE HISTORY BOYS

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