Theatre review: Maggots

Maggots tells an inherently downbeat, pessimistic story but Farah Najib's writing constantly upends this, leaving you feeling like you've watched a story of hope, however many times its narrators assure you of the contrary. Sam Baker Jones, Safiyya Ingar and Marcia Lecky are those narrators, reminding you at the outset that they're actors and the story isn't true ("but it could be") in an unfussy style that's typical of Najib's story and Jess Barton's production: They tell the story of Linda, who one day during a heatwave googles "what does death smell like?" She's got a nasty suspicion about the sickly-sweet smell that's coming from somewhere in her block of flats, and asks the building's WhatsApp group if they've seen the woman in number 61 recently, but gets no response. The story gently adds more characters as other neighbours start to notice something wrong, beginning with the young mother on the other side of the flat.

As post starts to pile up at number 61 and the signs that someone has died and been forgotten become more obvious - including the titular maggots that spread out to the flats to the side and below - the housing authority manages to ignore them altogether, refusing to pay any attention to the tenants' concerns and meeting them with responses ranging from boredom to laughing in their faces.

The trio telling the story complement each other - Lecky has a kind of exhausted warmth, Ingar is the one who comes closest to energy and optimism, while Baker Jones' flat Midlands pragmatism rounds out characters whose day jobs as cleaners and carers leave them really needing their homes to be havens of rest at the end of the day, but also too tired to kick up quite as much fuss as is needed to get anyone to pay attention. They're engaging enough storytellers to almost let you overlook the more implausible elements, like quite how long the tenants take to think of calling the police or the press.

Like a lot of shows at the Bush recently the design seems to be channelling London Road, although this time the flowers aren't a sign of life blooming - the bunches of dried flowers that hang over Caitlin Mawhinney's set could be there to stave off the bad smell hanging over the story, and similarly the community of neighbours that builds is never quite as inspiring as this sort of story traditionally results in.

But for all that these are people who can't quite connect in any significant way, and at the heart of the story is a woman who was all too obviously forgotten and literally left to rot, there's something quietly beautiful to what we get here: Najib is insistent that there's no triumphant silver lining to what ends up being a year of discomfort and neglect, but just as insistent that there are tiny victories being made as well, and maybe that's more than enough.

Maggots by Farah Najib is booking until the 28th of February at the Bush Theatre's Studio.

Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Ross Kernahan.