Theatre review: The Guilty

The big price hikes to the cheapest seats since Timothy Sheader took over the Donald and Margot Warehouse mean I don't go as often, and when I do I'm usually alone as not everyone wants to spend £32 to look at the back of an actor's head. When that actor is Russell Tovey though it's a pretty safe bet that both I and my usual theatre companions will be interested, actually, especially with the promise of him being the only actor on stage: Tovey plays Joe, a 999 operator who's not exactly a natural fit for the job; frequently tetchy and impatient with the callers, many of whom are wasting his time and police resources, but some of whom could do with a more sympathetic ear. As it turns out this isn't what he wants to be doing - a police officer suspended from his usual duties, this is his last night on the phone lines before he has to attend a hearing about the event that left his and his colleagues' jobs on the line.

Chloë Moss' play gives us little insights into Joe's life and personality as he deals with the various uncredited voices of the callers, as well as his estranged wife and 6-year-old daughter, but 20 minutes in things take a distinct turn.

This is when he gets a call from Emily, a young mother who can't speak freely, but who Joe starts to piece together has been abducted by her ex-husband and thrown into the back of a van; as well as the immediate danger to her, there's the fact that her two young children have been left alone in their home. While he dispatches teams both to track down the van and look after the children, Joe does some investigating of his own to try and speed things up, cutting corners and using his own phone to try and make sure Emily and her daughter know someone's looking out for them.

There are things about the setup that don't really make a lot of sense - not least of all why an officer under investigation has been given such an important job, and why he's doing it in an otherwise empty office with nobody else there either to support him or to ensure that he doesn't go off script - as in fact he frequently does. Maybe this, and the precise nature of Joe's crime when we finally find it out, makes more sense in Denmark - the play is an adaptation of the film Den Skyldige.

Moss' script, Felix Barrett's production and Tovey's performance are all intense enough to make these logical holes go away once the main plot kicks in though. A lot of shows advertise themselves as thrillers but The Guilty really lives up to the billing, and you can feel yourself physically tightening up with nerves as the story's twists get darker. Anna Watson's lighting and Gareth Fry's sound ramp up the claustrophobic feel as Joe gets dragged into the call, jumping between extremes as he remains callously disconnected from most of the calls, but gets far too personally involved in this one.

About ten minutes from the end there's a nasty little twist that pulls the rug out from both Joe and the audience, before an even bigger one in the closing seconds. It's pulled off via an Astonishing Coup de Théâtre^TM so elaborate the TV screens in the theatre bar show how it was achieved after the show ends; it might have been more effective for me if I'd actually been able to see it properly* and, like the setup, the final reveal requires a certain amount of logic be left at the door. What can't be denied though is that Tovey is taking us on a wild and disturbing enough ride to make most of the plot niggles secondary to the very real thrills and chills.

The Guilty by Chloë Moss, based on the screenplay Den Skyldige by Gustav Möller and Emil Nygaard Albertsen, is booking until the 15th of August at the Donmar Warehouse.

Running time: 1 hour 5 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.

*across three decades and five artistic directors, one constant of my visits to the Donmar remains the insistence on blocking shows with crucial elements only visible if you're watching the show straight on, as if more than half the audience aren't on the sides