Black Comedy

by Peter Shaffer

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 2 July 2026

Caroline Steinbeis directs Joe Bannister as Brindsley Miller, Leah Haile as his fiancée Carol Melkett, Jason Barnett as her father Colonel Melkett, Julia Hills as Brindsley's neighbour Miss Furnival, Simon Manyonda as his other neighbour Harold Gorringe, Patricia Allison as his former girlfriend Clea, Chris Chilton as Schuppanzigh (an employee of the London Electricity Board) and Javier Marzan as Georg Bamberger, a wealthy recluse, in Peter Shaffer's one-act farce Black Comedy.

The action takes place on an evening of chaos (naturally): Brindsley and Carol prepare to dazzle her father and Baumgartner who are about to visit Brindsley's down-at-heel flat. To do this they have surreptitiously "borrowed" impressive items - furniture and knickknacks - from Gorringe's flat in his absence. Suddenly the entire building suffers a blackout during which unexpected visitors turn up and complicate the situation in the ridiculous way in which farces usually operate.

The dazzling visual technique by which all this is managed for the audience's benefit is that the opening scene in which there is electric light is played in total darkness, while the scenes in blackout are played with full stage lighting so we can see all the characters blindly feeling their way about the room. Striking a match or clicking on a cigarette lighter reduces the lighting to a subdued glow. This witty convention allows for any number of tremendous sight gags as characters try to find one another, hand out drinks, or in Brindsley's case try to move furniture into and out of the room. The arrival of a new character can be "concealed" until he or she chooses to speak, providing yet another avenue for laughs.

The physical comedy is rendered even more remarkable as the play is here performed in the round, so the gags have to be convincing from multiple angles; the small acting space means that drinks are occasionally passed in error to members the audience, and some are directly addressed by characters who mis-place where other people are in the room.

The cast and creative team (set and costume designer.Simon Daw, lighting designer Elliott Griggs and physical comedy consultant John Nicholson among others) have done the play proud, and have revealed the astonishing variety of Peter Shaffer's talent - he wrote this play within months of the epic The Royal Hunt of the Sun. Yet though this seems far removed from the high seriousness of his full-length dramas there remains beneath the surface a strong undercurrent of uncertainty and betrayal; Brindsley is tying himself in knots and unwittingly causing damage to himself as well as those around him as he persists in seeing himself only as a victim of circumstances. However, the strongest impression is of immense theatrical fun.

Ghosts

by Henrik Ibsen

seen at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith on 19 April 2025

Rachel O'Riordan directs Gary Owen's modern adaptation of Ibsen's intense family drama, featuring Victoria Smurfit as Helena (Mrs Alving in the original), Callum Scott-Howells as her son Oz (Oswald Alving), Patricia Allison as Reggie (Regina Engstrand), Rhashan Stone as Andersen (Pastor Manders) and Deka Walmsley as Jacob (Engstrand) Regina's putative father.

O'Riordan and Owen have collaborated several times before, reworking or riffing on classics: they were responsible for the play Romeo and Julie which I saw in March 2023, and indeed Callum Scott-Howells featured as Romeo in that production.

Ghosts caused a scandal when it was written in 1881 as it dealt openly with the consequences of an apparently respectable but in fact disastrous marriage, leading to the son inheriting syphilis from his father. Gary Owen has re-cast this classic in a contemporary setting in which the widowed Helena is still proposing to invest her husband's fortune in creating a children's hospital, and there are still fateful secrets being hidden from Oz and Reggie, but the then shocking references to syphilis are here replaced by a gruelling reckoning with an abusive marriage.

Mother and son are at loggerheads as she has always seemed cold and unfeeling towards him while she has seen herself as protecting her son from his father. Helena and Andersen are longstanding friends who plainly once were lovers (in their university days) so there is plenty of room for tension between them too as Anderrsen, acting as the charitable trust's lawyer, attempts to shield it from reputational damage once he realises that accusations concerning the dead man's behaviour may explode into adverse publicity.

It's a cleverly thought out adaptation given a powerful boost by electrifying performances, particularly by Victoria Smurfit and Callum Scott-Howells. Helena has long monologues in which she tries to explain to both Andersen and to Oz (separately) the stultifying experience of living with an abusive partner and feeling unable to escape, while Oz is torn by powerful resentments and is desperate now to make something of the deep connection he feels with his childhood friend Reggie - all unaware that they have the same father. When confronted by this fact he is appalled to realise that he still "feels right" with Reggie, and there is a terrifying moment when he is on the verge of becoming as predatory as his father was, only prevented by Reggie's determination to walk away from the situation.

All takes place in a cavernous reception in the Alving house, with a vast window at the back through which nothing can be seen but fog. On the whole length and height of the walls are vast panelled photographs of the dead husband and father - but they are all shots only of the back of his head, an extremely disturbing image of his baleful control. This set design by Merle Hensel provides a stunning visual counterpart to the huge psychological damage Helena has suffered and has unwittingly passed on to those around her despite her best intentions. As Andersen ruefully remarks, in many situations of this sort the victim can inadvertently become complicit in damaging other people.

What I found particularly compelling in this production was that all the characters viewed the situation from a different perspective and yet it was completely believable that each point of view could seem justifiable. The speeches were often lengthy - far longer than would normally be encountered in ordinary dialogue - but the emotional weight of what was being said overrode any qualms about verbosity or artificiality. And there was so much passion in the delivery. At times Helena would visibly flinch and cower at what was being said to her, even though in many ways she was a steely character in her own right.

Productions of Ghosts adhering more closely to Ibsen's original text are still very powerful, but this re-working in contemporary terms is also fully justified.