Theatre review: The Bounds

I often talk about weirdly specific themes that come around in theatre, and this year we're getting one that's also specific to a venue: After Gunter, the Royal Court Upstairs once again gives us a play about mediaeval football matches between entire villages that could go on for days and risked turning violent - in a story with an undercurrent of witchcraft. The characters in Stewart Pringle's The Bounds don't actually get anywhere near enough the action to get injured by it, which isn't to say you feel confident they won't come to harm: On the outskirts of the Northumberland village of Allendale, Percy (Ryan Nolan) and Rowan (Lauren Waine) have taken their places for the annual Whitsun match against hated local rivals Catton. But in practice they're essentially spectators, and not even in a good location: They're clearly not star players, and have been ditched somewhere so far out of the way that even a game that takes place over several miles is unlikely to reach them.

The opening scene plays out like a very funny historical sitcom, with anachronistic football chants, discussion of the fitness of their star players, and Percy insisting this is the year that Allendale is bound to win - even though Rowan points out they've been trounced every year for as long as they remember.

The witty lines continue as they're joined by a man they don't recognise - Sam (Soroosh Lavasani) says he's the son of the local squire, who's been off in Oxford and London for the last decade, but Percy won't be convinced he isn't a spy from Catton sent to sabotage them in ways that aren't particularly clear right now but are bound to be serious. But Jack McNamara's production takes a turn to the sinister as night falls and the game shows no sign of ending - when Blackadder suddenly turns into The Wicker Man. Possibly in reality, possibly in a dream, Percy is visited by a child (Harry Weston or Wilbur Conabeare,) who casually imparts some news that will shake his whole identity.

The play is set in 1553, during the reign of Edward VI, who's continuing his father's work of dissolving the monasteries and reallocating land - in the case of this area, the boundaries are being shifted, meaning Percy's house now falls within the bounds of the hated Catton. It's part of the underlying theme of people in positions of no power - in this case literal peasants - being at the mercy of decisions made by the powerful far away, and to the audience there's an added knowledge of just how wildly things can change overnight: A throwaway mention of the teenage king's health reminds us he's about to be succeeded by his sister Mary I, and the status quo which currently sees Catholics persecuted will be abruptly reversed.

With particular help from Matthew Tuckey's eerie sound design, McNamara's production really effectively manages these shifts between sitcom and folk horror - although one creepy apparition feels wasted, if we hadn't been sitting right next to it I'm not sure we'd have even registered it was there. Less successful is a further tonal change into a kind of absurdism (the play has had nods towards Waiting for Godot throughout, and obviously I can't be doing with that.) But now this Northumberland hill seems to have become a liminal space in which Tudor characters are confronted with items and concepts from many centuries in their futures - Pringle's been writing a lot of Doctor Who audio stories lately and it does feel a bit like we're due to get an explanation involving aliens at any moment.

Instead the explanation we get is a bit more philosophical, with Percy and Rowan ultimately not that different from powerless people regardless of the century they live in, at the whim of whoever happens to be in charge at any given time, and always existing either in a state of war, or the time before the next one. It's a bit of a disappointing conclusion for a show that's been so confident in its tonal shifts until that point, but strong performances, funny lines and some genuinely creepy moments ensure the overall effect has been an entertaining one.

The Bounds by Stewart Pringle is booking until the 13th of July at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.

Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Von Fox Promotions.