GOLDFISH
Bridewell Theatre
★★★
“diverting, amusing in places and slightly bonkers”
No-one can accuse Yawning Dog Productions of picking an easy path.
It seems like they wrote a bunch of ideas on cards, tossed them in a pile, and pulled out six or seven at random.
From that selection, writer Nina Beck has sewn together a scratchy fable that revives memories of ’90s fairground curio Big Mouth Billy Bass.
Here’s what the writer was working with – the last days of the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush when people were dying of starvation. A reporter looking to expose this horror. A mother who abandoned her son, the son becoming sickly, the mother becoming famous. A gleeful grab for the compound word “gold+fish”.
Still more: a mayor, Soapy Smith, trying to sell the dead dream of his forlorn town. A biologist. A photographer. A girl with a bucket who nearly drowns but doesn’t, thanks to a miracle.
And, of course, a talking fish, family Salmonidae. A spritely thing, albeit enigmatic and tongue-tied in the spotlight.
Under Guy McNair-Wilson’s direction the nine-strong cast are earnest in their attempts to pull this all together. Their performances continually provoke our interest, and they are aided by an impressive stage set with digital backdrops and a range of mood-shifting lighting and music.
The play has a couple of false starts before it hits its stride, perhaps not yet convinced we’re ready to come to terms with a talking fish.
I don’t think we ever are, are we?
But we have slimy Soapy Smith (a dextrous Ben Keenan) to sell us on the phenomenon. He buys wholly into the dream, perhaps because of his own family trauma, perhaps because there’s money to be made. Detractors like straight shooter Tappan Adney (Sam Newman) sit in the latter camp suggesting the mayor’s a plain old liar, luring men to their doom on the promise of hearing a salmon’s babble.
In the middle of this over-elaborate embroidery is a moment of ridiculous coincidence which relates to the true identity of Dr Kathleen Mole (Ingrid Werner) who is called from the big city to study the creature.
Credulity is stretched.
Then again in a world of far-fetched fish, such opportunism is small fry.
What should we make of this? It is ambitious in theme and action and the troupe is committed to recreating the Klondike. They have fun with the accents, have fun with the fish, have fun dunking their heads into tanks of water. It is diverting, amusing in places and slightly bonkers but never to an excessive degree. It is also tonally unsure and certainly unfinished.
There is mention in the programme notes of “fake news, mass hysteria and gender identity” as themes but the cast and script seem to cleave more comfortably to small town ding-dongs.
Besides, no-one needs to be force-fed topical relevance. Because there is, at the centre of all this bounty, a timeless idea: is this fish an objective miracle or a subjective delusion?
Who hears it? Only those who have a sense of awe? Does cynicism necessarily stop your ears? Are the gullible the lucky ones in their artless delusions or are they just suckers? Is absurdity a bulwark against, or a foundation of, human misery?
Goldfish is in several minds about what it wants to do with all these ideas and ultimately shies away from the challenge. However, it is in that sense of teetering that the most delightful moments reside.
GOLDFISH
Bridewell Theatre
Reviewed on 3rd November 2026
by Giles Broadbent
Photography by Yawning Dog Productions Ltd
