Theatre review: The Pitchfork Disney

Max Harrison, the latest of the select group of directors who seem to specialise in Philip Ridley's twisted fantasies, now takes on the writer's first, and one of his most famous works for the stage: The Pitchfork Disney sets for tone for Ridley's worlds that live somewhere at the intersection of a very recognisable East London and a surreal apocalyptic wasteland. Presley Stray (Ned Costello) has just returned from a daily trip to the shops, to bring back supplies of chocolate for himself and his twin sister Haley (Elizabeth Connick,) seemingly the only time that either of them ever leaves the run-down flat where they grew up. Ten years previously when they were eighteen, their parents both died in mysterious, suspicious circumstances, and since then they've cocooned themselves, finding a twisted kind of comfort in telling each other tales of an apocalypse that only they survived.

But Presley has a dangerous need to meet other people, dangerous because he lets in a beautiful young man he sees fall ill across the street.

Cosmo Disney (William Robinson) first appears rocking the full Neil Patrick Harris in Starship Troopers, quasi-SS black trench coat look, cluing us in to be wary of him from the start, but soon reveals underneath a sparkly red jacket because he's a professional entertainer (drunks give him cash to eat live cockroaches in pubs.) With Haley drugged asleep on the sofa, he and Presley develop an antagonistic but instantly co-dependent relationship, building worlds with storytelling as an act of flirtatious aggression just as the siblings do for comfort.

I said the play lives at the intersection of East London and the Apocalypse but Harrison's production feels much more strongly placed in the former. There's phenomenal pace in the delivery, and Robinson and Costello's back and forths have the feel of the superficially friendly banter with undeniable implicit menace of a pair of gangsters. Costello and Connick give spectacular performances of the siblings' fucked-up brand of protective love, although Haley is of course a mixed blessing of a role: After really getting to shine early on she then spends most of the play unconscious.

But it all tips a little bit in the direction of naturalism, and this is the first production I've seen that doesn't make you wonder if the world outside actually is a wasteland, with the characters we see the sole survivors. And if the world really is carrying on as normal outside, why has nobody taken an interest in what the twins are up to, and what they may or may not have done to their parents?

It also means the show loses a lot of its creepiness, some of which is to do with the sound and visuals: Sam Glossop’s sound design is minimal, while by contrast Ben Jacobs' lighting is dingy but still illuminates the audience and leaves no mysterious shadows for us to worry about. And Kit Hinchcliffe's living room set feels huge (the theatre's front row has been taken out to accommodate it) so even when the play's big grotesque figure Pitchfork Cavalier arrives, Matt Yulish's performance is still terrifying but there's no sense of the characters, let alone the audience, being claustrophobically trapped with him.

You certainly couldn’t call Harrison’s production bad - he’s done detailed character work with the actors, who are as great as this strange play demands of them. But I felt a little bit too aware of how good they are, the design leaving them exposed with all the responsibility for bringing the show’s nightmares to life rested squarely on their shoulders.

The Pitchfork Disney by Philip Ridley is booking until the 4th of October at the King’s Head Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Charles Flint.