WELCOME TO PEMFORT

Soho Theatre

★★★

“its lovable characters and the show’s strong cast ensure a compelling watch”

Welcome to Pemfort, or more specifically, welcome to its gift shop – you’re the first customer this week! This heartfelt play will make you feel like maybe you should quit your job and work in a castle (ehm, fort), or maybe that was just me. Run by mother hen Uma (Debra Gillett), a bubbly former drug addict, set designer Alys Whitehead and Victoria Maytom bring the shop to life with their vintage carpets and quirky cabinets filled with homemade jam and wooden swords.

We get to know Uma and her ‘chickens’, laidback groundskeeper Ria (Lydia Larson) and Ali Hadji-Heshmati’s wonderfully serious, budding conservationist Glenn, as they debate how to present the site’s history at their fundraising Living History event. Glenn insists on historical accuracy and sensitivity while Uma prefers cherry picking all the gruesome bits to cook up one sensational historical soup. Their lighthearted quarrels make director Ed Madden’s show feel much like a meandering sitcom, reinforced by Max Pappenheim’s overtly cheesy music and Cheng Keng’s frequent blackouts. But the story gains momentum when Kurtis (played with conviction by Sean Delaney) enters the scene. An ex-convict guilty of an undisclosed crime, the Londoner is not as out of place in this wholesome team as he initially appears. As it turns out, Uma, Glenn, and even Pemfort itself also harbour a dark past that they deal with in very different ways.

Ultimately, this show poses the question of how we should deal with our bloody, tragic, shocking pasts and connects these to both individuals and the heritage industry. Can people really change, and how important is the past to the present? Writer Sarah Power draws these connections subtly and is never overbearing in her interpretation, nor does she necessarily link them to the much-debated topic of how to deal with the legacies of colonialism. The Living History event at the end of the play, featuring an entertaining swordfight carefully choreographed by Enric Ortuño and a gorgeous backdrop by Ellie Foreman-Peck, offers comic relief rather than formulating answers.

The play’s rather slow start leaves little time to uncover the character’s ‘secrets’ gradually. At just 95 minutes, the layers are peeled back through sometimes unprompted confessions, such as when Glenn suddenly starts sharing his childhood trauma with Kurtis, whom he openly dislikes. We hear about the ex-convict’s shocking crime as he practices how he’ll confess it to his crush Ria. Gossip and speculation sadly remain remarkably absent in Power’s script, meaning she does not raise the stakes as high as they could be. Still, the relationships between the characters feel genuine and complex, and their interactions frequently left the audience in stitches.

Despite issues in the script’s pacing, its lovable characters and the show’s strong cast ensure a compelling watch. Blending lighthearted workplace quarrels with themes of violence and reckoning, Welcome to Pemfort offers an evening that is equal parts entertaining and thought provoking.