★★½

“Nook is best in its moments of tenderness”

A tense family drama revolving around a shared history of trauma, Off Main Stage’s new production Nook shines a light on the lasting effects of wounds from childhood: how they shape entire lives and cause permanent fissures between siblings.

Writer Cameron Corcoran, who also plays Tom, the younger of two brothers, creates a simple but effective narrative device: following their mother’s funeral, two brothers and a sister return to the home where they grew up, in order to read the will. The brothers are accompanied by their wives, and their uncle Phillip (Tim Molyneux) an alcoholic in recovery who lived with their mother and credits her with turning his life around. He is also the only one to hold any tenderness for the mother, and he tries to convince the siblings that she was more than the monster they remember her as. The tensions simmering just below the surface erupt when the will is read and everything is left to the eldest brother Kenny, played by Shannon Smith.

The play addresses the insidious consequences of physical and sexual abuse, with the mother’s ‘hands on’ parenting and an obscure past incident between sister Beth (Velvet Brown) and Phillip never far from the minds of the characters. The tensions emerging from class dynamics within relationships are also central: both brothers have married aspirational middle-class women – as evidenced by their choice of children’s names: Hugo and Arabella – who are appalled by their husbands’ behaviour upon returning to the house, where they revert to their old, combative selves.

Overall, the performances are good, Brown is compelling as the emotionally damaged sister trying to keep the family together. Kenny’s wife Sarah, played well by Zoë Scott, is all barely contained rage and contempt, while Tom’s partner Maya (Aoife Boyle) is by turns supportive and exasperated. The stage set is simple and evocative, a basic living room set up of sofa, armchair and coffee table is a fitting backdrop for the confrontations, uneasy alliances, and emotional outbursts that drive the play. Hector Smith’s direction enables the actors to make the best of this space, and the physical performances are striking; Corcoran’s adoption of childlike mannerisms in the presence of his overbearing older brother is particularly commendable.

Nevertheless, the narrative lacunae and the things left unsaid, while perhaps an accurate depiction of the difficulties sharing traumatic experiences, leave the audience too uncertain about events – there is little for us to grasp onto in terms of plot, leading to a sense of waiting for a revelation that never truly emerges. Nook is best in its moments of tenderness, as Sarah and Maya try to comfort and guide their husbands, but these are too fleeting. The play opens with Sarah’s bitterness and irritability, and this sets the tone for the action to come, creating a piece that is possibly too tonally consistent, and lacking in the elements of comedy that make the malevolent family-oriented work of playwrights like Harold Pinter so compelling.

DEPTFORD BABY at Jack Studio Theatre

★★★

“a successful ode to community strength and resilience in the face of larger forces”

Deptford Baby is an anarchic, freewheeling, and joyous expression of local pride in the face of the rising tide of gentrification, inflected with the language of Southeast London’s community, returning following a 2022 debut in Deptford’s Matchstick Piehouse.

The performance begins before the play proper starts, with DJ Tommy Tappah playing a selection of UK garage and house tunes to the audience as they enter, setting the scene of Deptford High Street on a balmy summer’s evening, with people milling around on the street, enjoying a drink and soaking up the sun. Tommy Tappah’s call and response interplay – ‘when I say Deptford, you say baby’; ‘when I say Chino, you say Igwe’ – helping to create a party atmosphere that, in a room without seats, would certainly have resulted in dancing.

Writer-performer Chukwudi Onwere plays Chino Igwe, a Deptford local and aspiring novelist, who is walking down the High Street on the way to submit his Master’s thesis on Black British History, when suddenly the area is hit by an earthquake and then a tidal wave, catalysing a series of picaresque encounters with a love interest, giant fish, elderly relatives. Culminating in a climactic battle by the residents of Deptford and beyond, led by Chino, to defend their neighbourhood. ‘See it, fight it, restore your community’ is a refrain throughout the piece, and above all Deptford Baby is a celebration of locality, of the people and places that make an area special, and the need to fight to protect it.

These events are visually rendered by Carey Chomsoonthorn’s spectacular lighting design, which makes the most of the sparse staging, using flashing and coloured lights to evoke earthquakes, floods, and giant fish. Onwere’s performance is strong, and his portrayal of Chino’s Nigerian father and aunty are very well received by the audience. He throws himself around the small space, victim of many of misfortunes, and in this is well directed by Marc Pouni. Tommy Tappah’s mimed interventions and reactions to the action on stage provide an enjoyable interplay with the main action, and suggest that, should he want to, he’s ready to step out from behind the decks and into centre stage.

The rapid-fire nature of the play is one of its strengths. We are repeatedly told that Chino thrills the Deptford community with his adventure stories, and Deptford Baby’s structure surely echoes this, running through many floridly described, outlandish situations that act as an allegory for the external pressures of gentrification bearing down on Deptford. While I feel that some topics could have been broached differently, knife crime for example is touched on as a comedic example of his grandfather’s bravery, whose traumatic past is likewise dealt with as a sort of footnote, overall Deptford Baby is a successful ode to community strength and resilience in the face of larger forces, that is both thought-provoking and funny.

Tag Archives: Rob Tomlinson

NOOK

★★½

Union Theatre

NOOK at the Union Theatre

★★½

“Nook is best in its moments of tenderness”

NOOK at the Union Theatre

Reviewed on 19th August 2024

by Rob Tomlinson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

WET FEET | ★★★★ | June 2024

THE ESSENCE OF AUDREY | ★★★★ | February 2024

GHOST ON A WIRE | ★★★ | September 2022

NOOK

NOOK

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DEPTFORD BABY

★★★

Jack Studio Theatre

DEPTFORD BABY at Jack Studio Theatre

★★★

“a successful ode to community strength and resilience in the face of larger forces”