★★★★★

“There is humour in abundance – terrible gin, awkward meet-cutes, frantic booze runs – but Edmunds also weaves in harder truths”

One night in Luton. Sounds like hell. But it’s going to be a trip.

There will be tears. There will be laughter. You will make friends and say goodbye.

But don’t be frightened, two best mates – familiar because they’re everyone’s best mate ¬– are taking us on a tour both of their own turf and their outlook in writer-director Sam Edmunds dazzling, vibrant and rocking anthem to teenage kicks.

It’s sometime in the 2000s. A house party is the frame – we’re going from pre-drinks bravado to dazed aftermath – but what Chalk Line Theatre delivers is an odyssey into the heart of a community, co-directed with Vikesh Godhwani and performed with unrelenting, heart-pounding gusto.

This is Under Milk Wood for millennials.

Nathaniel Christian and Elan Butler – both remarkable for their stamina and craft – explode onto the stage, whipping up the audience before we have even caught our breath. Leanne Henlon joins them in a carousel of cameos: mums, mates, corner-shop clerks, each sketched with quick wit and affectionate precision.

Rob Miles’s set of looming brick blocks doubles as playground, alley, shop and living room, while Matteo Depares’s sound design adds percussive punch to accompany chest-thumps and fist-bangs.

It is high-energy stuff, rattling along at 100 miles an hour. The dancing is contagious. The flirting gorgeous. The bond between the bros becomes one we love and share, and the audience is part of the gang from the outset, the trio exuding charm through clouds of Lynx Africa, fist-bumping their new pals in the front row.

The text is rich in 00s detail: Tinie Tempah on tinny speakers, Blackberrys buzzing in pockets, fake Ralph Laurens worn like armour. There is humour in abundance – terrible gin, awkward meet-cutes, frantic booze runs – but Edmunds also weaves in harder truths. Debt as a weight. Futures clouded by recession, tuition fees, and the claustrophobic squeeze of austerity Britain. Adults dream of better, but as one character notes, “People round here walk as if they are being held back.”

What keeps the play aloft is its refusal to demonise. It never pillories working-class kids on council estates; instead, it honours their energy, humour and ¬– above all – hope. Hope is the dope.

If there is fury, it comes from fear; if there is violence, it is the consequence of deprivation. The writing is affectionate, sharp, and sometimes filthy but everyone in the audience recognises something from their own youth in this pick’n’mix panorama of bluster and pain.

The cast’s commitment is total. Narrator Christian sustains the pace, anchoring the whirlwind with charisma and warmth. He is our Captain Cat, seeing through windows and into souls. Butler – with a cheerful loping melancholy – bounces between bravado and vulnerability, Henlon dazzles with her versatility, dancer, temptress, bully. Together they radiate raw joy. Even when tragedy strikes, the finale brims with uplift. It is impossible not to leave smiling.

This is theatre as rallying cry. Against knife crime, against despair, for pride of place and community, for ground-up revolution. Chalk Line has an excellent track record but The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return feels like the clincher.

Brash, funny, bold and exuberant. Total theatre.

BRIXTON CALLING

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★

“funny, sharp, and full of twists and turns”

Growing up in South London in the early 2000s, Brixton Academy already had legendary status. My first gig was there: racing to the front barrier with friends to get as close as possible to the stage. The electric anticipation of entering a music venue has an affinity with stepping into a theatre, and the staging of this production of Brixton Calling, with the neon newspaper clippings and autographs scratched into the wall and floors (Nik Corrall), leaves you in no doubt for what’s in store.

Brixton Calling, adapted by Alex Urwin from Simon Parkes’ memoir, captures that feeling with exhilarating clarity. This high-energy production tells the true story of how Parkes, then a 23-year-old public school-educated outsider, bought a crumbling old cinema in Brixton for £1 and turned it into the cultural juggernaut that it still is today. From The Clash to Fela Kuti, the Academy became a cultural powerhouse, and this show captures the chaos and charisma behind the scenes.

Urwin’s script moves at pace, leaping from Parkes’ childhood in Grimsby to the privileged corridors of a Scottish boarding school, and eventually into the heart of 1980s Brixton. It’s funny, sharp, and full of twists and turns. Max Runham is compelling as Simon Parkes, and Tendai Humphrey Sitima brings spark and range as his friend and collaborator Johnny Lawes. Together they morph into dozens of characters, from posh schoolboys to gruff Glaswegians, often switching roles and accents with impressive agility.

Originally conceived as a solo show, director Bronagh Lagan wisely suggested expanding the cast to better reflect the diversity and energy of the Brixton scene. It works well, though the structure still leans heavily toward Runham, who steers much of the narrative via direct address, with Sitima often in more supporting parts. That doesn’t mean Sitima is not impactful. His portrayal of Lawes’ encounter with the police during the 1985 Brixton Riots is shockingly visceral.

What elevates Brixton Calling is its use of the music that makes the venue a success. Runham and Sitima, both accomplished musicians, weave live performance seamlessly into the storytelling – punctuating moments of revelation or emulating the many artists who’ve graced the Academy’s stage. They move easily between guitar, piano and vocals, infusing the production with authenticity and rhythm.

The play does lose momentum slightly in its final third. As the energy of 80s anarchism gives way to 90s hedonism, the focus shifts from Parkes’ personal journey to broader musical history, and the emotional momentum dips. A rave sequence suffers from muddy sound mixing (Max Pappenheim’s only real misstep), with dialogue often drowned out by overpowering bass.

This gives way to a series of near-misses – an expensive booking collapse, a violent attack, a brush with the IRA – that push Parkes to question if he can keep pouring everything into the Academy. He eventually decides to sell up, with the venue becoming the crown jewel of an expanding Academy chain. There’s a sense of bittersweet inevitability, a nod to how the independent culture that helped places like Brixton to thrive often gets swallowed by bigger fish with bigger pockets.

But Brixton Calling is, above all, a feel-good celebration of live music and bold risk-taking. It’s a rousing reminder that sometimes all it takes is a bit of luck, a lot of guts, and a deep love of the arts to make something out of nothing – at least in a corner of South London.

THE CHAOS THAT HAS BEEN AND WILL NO DOUBT RETURN

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★★

“There is humour in abundance – terrible gin, awkward meet-cutes, frantic booze runs – but Edmunds also weaves in harder truths”

THE CHAOS THAT HAS BEEN AND WILL NO DOUBT RETURN

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 4th September 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Harry Elletson

Recently reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

THE CHAOS

THE CHAOS

THE CHAOS

BRIXTON CALLING

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★

“funny, sharp, and full of twists and turns”

BRIXTON CALLING

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 25th July 2025

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Danny Kaan

Recently reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

BRIXTON CALLING

BRIXTON CALLING

BRIXTON CALLING

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