Theatre review: The Haystack

Roxana Silbert finally directs her first show since taking over Hampstead Theatre with the last production of her opening season, Al Blyth's debut full-length play The Haystack. The people searching for needles in it are GCHQ computer coders Neil (Big Favourite Round These Parts Oliver Johnstone) and Zef (Enyi Okoronkwo,) on secondment to the counter-terrorism division when they impress the Deputy Director, Hannah (Sarah Woodward) so much she keeps them in her team permanently. They do wonder exactly what their first assignment actually has to do with terrorism: Junior Guardian journalist Cora (Rona Morison) has discovered a possible connection between Saudi Arabian money and a number of British MPs, and the pair are set to task finding her source. After some time monitoring Cora they're suddenly taken off the case, only for her source, a Saudi princess (a pre-recorded Sirine Saba) to die in mysterious circumstances.

They're forbidden from following up the case but the socially awkward Neil had developed a bit too intense an attachment to his subject, and continues to monitor Cora privately.

The story is told in flashback by Neil to Cora's former editor Denise (Lucy Black,) giving her the full story on a situation that soon went wildly out of control. The Haystack is a thriller on an unsettling subject that reminds us how much all of our private lives could be under scrutiny - not just from criminal hackers but also from the agencies meant to be keeping us safe, with the justification that it's all being done in the public interest giving them plausible deniability for any nastier consequences. A subplot in which Neil and Zef are tasked with overhauling the system which flags up potential threats also exposes the existing system as bloated and inaccurate, its algorithms systemically racist.

So the fact that the play takes a long time to really build up any tension is disappointing. It only really starts to get the pulse racing once Neil crosses the last line and actually inserts himself into Cora's life: It starts as a desperate measure when he realises she's contemplating suicide, and he intercedes. Trying to keep her occupied, he uses his intimate knowledge of her to present himself as someone she’s guaranteed to be interested in, but his crush on her means they soon end up in a relationship for real, with him going to great lengths to create a fake identity for himself. Blyth’s play does eventually take Neil to task for how he abuses Cora’s trust, but for the most part their relationship is played a bit like a Richard Curtis rapey rom-com with an added element of danger; it’s deliberate, as the relationship is explicitly used as a metaphor for the security services starting from a point of trying to keep people safe, and in a series of steps that seem sensible at the time ending up spying on and controlling them in a downright creepy way.

Coming close to the three-hour mark, The Haystack definitely feels like a play that could have done with a bit of tightening up if it wants to live up to its thriller billing, and both script and production could have used a bit more attention to detail in creating its characters – Johnstone and Morison are doing much of the heavy lifting in making the leads seem like real people. It’s probably something that’s more distracting to me because of how attractive I find Johnstone, but I felt like more could have been done to emphasise Neil’s social awkwardness and outsider status, given how relevant it is to how he ends up behaving: I’m not disputing that someone very good-looking can be shy and awkward, having met people like that, and it does tend to get mistaken for rudeness or arrogance; but the only sign we get of him being bad with people is some slightly too-blunt responses to his boss’ questions, and while Neil and Zef don’t exactly dress like James Bond, Hannah’s snark about them having turned up to work in their pyjamas or needing to shower more often doesn’t exactly fit with their perfect grooming or the pristine jeans, T-shirts and hoodies Emma Cains puts them in.

Tom Piper’s set on the other hand is clever, a number of wooden panels sliding around the stage like a block puzzle game, referencing the retro games the boys like to play while providing both something to cover scene changes, and screens for Duncan McLean’s projections. And the device Blyth comes up with to show Neil “playing in god mode” to chat up Cora is neat (if only we’d seen more of what he’s like without it.) In the last half-hour the action tightens, there are some neat twists and scares and the tension ratchets up accordingly, with the audience finally reacting to both comedy and drama, having been noticeably quiet for much of the running time. The Haystack has a lot to say that’s both interesting and sinister, but is sometimes a bit too concerned with making sure it’s said all of it to let the story break out.

Also SPOILER ALERT but Johnstone gets tied to a chair at one point. He’s wearing clothes but you have to work with what you're given.

The Haystack by Al Blyth is booking until the 7th of March at Hampstead Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz.