LIFERS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★

“challenges the audience as it challenges the system”

There is a moment – in fact several – when lifer Lenny, full of illness and old age, repeats the story of the day he bought his young son a trampoline for his birthday.

Each time he tells the story afresh. Sometimes he tells it, precise in every detail, twice in the same breath without realising.

This is what prison must be like, we think. The same thing again and again, without colour, diversion or end. Tedium. Repetition. The only colour arising from memory.

Writer Evan Placey’s sense of authenticity is no surprise. He engaged with lifers to hear their stories, and it’s the detail that sticks: the quest not for paradise, but a better pillow.

Theatre company Synergy commissions new plays to challenge public perception of prisoners. To achieve this, Placey gives us not three dastardly scrotes full of violence and swagger but three old men railing against the quotidian travails of age. They are out of breath and, perversely, out of time. The bantering trio of Norton (Sam Cox), Baxter (Ricky Fearon) and Lenny (Peter Wight) could be playing poker down the Dog and Duck, such is their comfort with discomfort.

For Lenny, that half-reality feels more tangible. He is losing his memory. He has headaches. He doesn’t know where he is. But a referral to a specialist costs £960 and chances are he’s swinging the lead because they’re all wrong ’uns, right? A couple of Ibuprofen should do the trick.

Lifers, under Esther Baker’s direction, challenges the audience as it challenges the system.

Who cares?

Who cares about a fading lifer? As the prison doctor Sonya (Mona Goodwin) tells newbie warder Mark (James Backway), her father has been waiting eight months for a gall bladder op and he’s never had so much as a parking ticket. Mark thinks he can change the world, starting with helping Lenny on with his trackie bottoms. He has an uphill task.

Lenny’s story unfolds slowly. Yes, he is the old and infirm prisoner caught in a bureaucracy that might condemn him to death. But he also has a bloody past. His showdown with son Simian (also Backway) is the most effective passage of the play, though it feels flown in from an entirely different one.

That may be a flaw in the drama’s construction. For while the drama asks plenty of questions, it has so much on its plate it sometimes struggles on how to proceed, using the next question to divert from the lack of a previous answer. Or maybe there are no answers and that’s the point.

Into this world, designed in shades of institutional grey by Katy McPhee, the cast fits like a jigsaw. The two old lags bring gallows humour. Backway grows into the role of optimistic Mark (less a character than a point of view) but his Simian comes fully formed. Goodwin appears like an ambassador from the outside world, weary but with choices.

At the centre of all is Peter Wight as Lenny. He is formidable – one minute weeping, the next threatening. His memories, which fail him, fail him kindly, offering him a softer remembrance of horrors past.

The play doesn’t preach, it points. We shuffle in our seats. These are not easy people to care about. Do we even want to? Have we the capacity for more empathy in a roiling world of discord?

We leave the auditorium free to breathe fresh air and make our own way home. It is a small comfort and a huge relief.

LIFERS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 6th October 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Richard Southgate

Previously reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

THE CHAOS THAT HAS BEEN AND WILL NO DOUBT RETURN | ★★★★★ | September 2025

THE ANIMATOR | ★★★ | August 2025

BRIXTON CALLING | ★★★★ | July 2025

THE WHITE CHIP | ★★★★ | July 2025

WHO IS CLAUDE CAHUN? | ★★ | June 2025

THIS IS MY FAMILY | ★★½ | May 2025

THE FROGS | ★★★ | May 2025

RADIANT BOY | ★★½ | May 2025

LIFERS

HAMNET at the Garrick Theatre

★★★

“The story is gripping, and the performances are strong”

It is a hard task to adapt an incredibly popular and deeply literary novel for the stage, especially one which spans decades, cities and narrative voices. This adaptation doesn’t quite carry the romantic and ethereal genius of its source text, but it is brave enough to carve its own path through the story. It rushes along as a love letter to the emotional power of theatre.

Agnes is the peculiar orphaned daughter of a sheep farmer, who falls for the quick tongued Latin tutor, known better as William Shakespeare. The first half follows their romance and their struggles with their respective families, particularly William’s cruel and violent father. The second half jumps a decade, and surrounds the personal heartbreak which inspires, so this play supposes, one of the greatest tragedies ever written.

Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation is direct, emotionally honest and blunt. Sometimes this is an asset, allowing the emotional truths to be laid bare, but sometimes it lacks subtlety. The high-octane emotions, especially at the beginning, do feel a bit distancing at times, and it would have been interesting to explore a more layered complexity, especially in the couple’s relationships with their parental figures. The time jump in the middle, which brings the twins to the forefront and allows the piece a greater emotional depth, also stunts the development of the romantic centre. In some ways this does work, as by shifting the focus from the romance, the script is able to build its own identity, separately from the novel. Some of the strongest moments come with William’s players, and their plans for a new playhouse. Converting the stage into The Globe for the final scene is magical, and the joy and power of theatre is beautifully explored here.

Erica Whyman’s direction gives Hamnet significant momentum, hurtling along with a terrible, inevitable dread. There are some really beautiful moments to be found, but often they come in the pauses, when the play lets itself breathe. Some of this energy comes from the choice to cover each scene transition with a jaunty tune (Oğuz Kaplangi). This is also interspersed with sinister breathing and whispering, by sound designer Simon Baker. However, because many of the scenes are short and sharp it does stilt some of them, and prevents us from sitting with what we have seen.

It is a large cast, which serves to flesh out the rich world of the play. Madeleine Mantock’s Agnes is fiery and bold, contrasting and complementing Tom Varey’s William who is more pent up. For me the standouts, were Ajani Cabey and Alex Jarrett as the tragically fated twins. Cabey’s performance was beautiful, showing both incredible grace and joyous mischief. Jarrett was also excellent, bringing a tragic complexity to a grieving child, and one of her speeches was, for me, the emotional punch of the whole performance. Special mentions must also go to Gabriel Akuwudike’s Bartholomew whose excellent comic timing was a joy and Sarah Belcher who as Joan had a real grasp of her emotional levels, and brought a huge amount to what might’ve been a one note character.

Tom Piper’s set is ingenious, quirky and fun. Two levels framed by wooden ladders allow the cast to scamper up and down and all around, making use of every inch of the space. Using wood gives it an earthy feel, connected to Agnes’ natural healing. Prema Mehta’s lighting design brings harmony to this playful and warm set.

As an avid fan of the novel, I wanted to love this play. While I respect its ability to make the story its own, for me the emotional build felt rushed, and didn’t pay off. The story is gripping, and the performances are strong. But there is a bit of magic missing, which is what made the novel unique, and without which, the play is left feeling a little hollow.

Tag Archives: Peter Wight

LIFERS

★★★

Southwark Playhouse Borough

LIFERS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★

“challenges the audience as it challenges the system”