SALT

Riverside Studios

★★★

“The real magic is to be found in the performances which are quite captivating”

Contemporary Ritual Theatre’s play “Salt”, written and directed by Beau Hopkins, aims to fulfil its objectives of creating ‘innovative, powerful and challenging theatre’. From the outset it is, indeed, atmospheric. With no set, an eighteenth-century unnamed Norfolk village is conjured up by merely a few buckets, baskets and bones, and other nautical flotsam; with sound effects purely created from the throats of the close-knit cast. The audience sit in concentric circles. Centre stage a thick rope, coiled like a King Cobra, is unravelled by the performers and laid out in a ring at our feet. A boundary it seems. A clear partition between our world and theirs. They often cross it, but we are never allowed to.

Throughout, we are outsiders looking into the world summoned up by this three-hander play, and the sense of exclusion never leaves us. It is a world both simple and tragic, ethereal yet earthy. Man Billy (Mylo McDonald), a fisherman, lives on the coast with his domineering mother, Widow Pruttock (Emily Outred). It is a wind-swept existence, pounded by both the elements without and the superstitions within. The pair are bound to each other by an invisible cord. Until itinerant singer Sheldis (Bess Roche) appears, threatening to break the connection by casting her own spell on Man Billy.

The narrative unfolds slowly and, although Sheldis doesn’t make an appearance until just before interval, she is ever present – a shadow just beyond the boundaries. All three cast members repeatedly cross over from mundane reality to the surreal mysticism of folklore and fantasy. The transition is as easy as a breaking wave on the shore. Hopkins’ writing is rhythmic and poetic, with shades of Dylan Thomas, particularly when the actors break into other characters from the remote village. It is ‘Under Milk Wood’ turned sour. The more the story unfolds, however, the more tangled it becomes and for much of the time we are unsure of where it is heading.

The performances are compelling. McDonald, as Billy, is a simple soul, full of questions and unbound curiosity. Boyishness on the edge of darkness. Outred’s Widow Pruttock obsessively guards her son from this darkness while unwittingly pushing him further into it. Roche, as Sheldis, is a force to be reckoned with. Part rag doll, part Voodoo priestess, part gypsy, siren and shaman, she captivates the audience as much as she enchants Billy. What is never made clear is her agenda or her motive. Likewise, we never really know whether we are in a Mystery Play or a Morality Play; or just some sort of experimental workshop. By the second act, the poeticism is still very much intact, but we are losing the sense of purpose. There is no denying the chemistry of the trio onstage, yet we feel excluded from their own internal language and communication. The compelling nature loses its grip somewhat in its final moments – this could be much more harrowing if less baffling.

What does give it cohesion is the physicality and the rhythm. Precisely choreographed, the dialogue shifts seamlessly into bursts of a Capella singing, not melodious but in harmony with the landscape depicted and with the archaically lyrical language. Many themes are explored – some larger than others – including grief, love, death, self-knowledge, mysticism… but the strands have no real direction. By the end, the rope that was laid out is collected and coiled up again into its bundle. We are back at the start – none the wiser maybe, yet we still feel we have experienced something quite magical, if not easily accessible. The real magic is to be found in the performances which are quite captivating. A provocative piece – not to be taken with a pinch of salt.

SALT

Riverside Studios

Reviewed on 4th March 2026

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Peter Morgan

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