Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. Martin McDonagh recently bagged film awards for The Banshees of Inisherin, but this play, which reaches the West End two decades after it was first performed, has a distinctly darker tone. Lily Allen plays Katurian, a writer in an unnamed Kafkaesque police state who is being interrogated about her work. Numerous killings seem to echo the plots. Could she be responsible, either directly or indirectly?
There is plenty of comedy here but it comes with a large garnish of brutality. The two investigating cops are Tupolski (Steve Pemberton) and Ariel (Paul Kaye) – not so much good cop and bad cop as bad cop and much worse cop. Ariel in particular takes great pleasure in sadistically slamming Katurian's head onto the floor. In the original production Katurian was male, played by David Tennant. The gender switch makes the violence all the more wincemaking, with Kaye, all lanky hair and mean stare, towering over the petite Allen.
Fans of Pemberton's chillingly comic Inside No 9 TV work may look for and spot similarities here. Katurian's stories are nightmarish fairy tales. Grim as well as Grimm. Various questions are prompted as they are read out or re-enacted and we learn about her past. Did the events we hear about happen? Do writers realise the power their words can have? The latter is presumably something McDonagh has given much thought to.
The Pillowman tale, we discover, is a story about an imaginary creature made up of cushions who encourages children to kill themselves so that they don't grow up to do evil, bad things. And that's one of the nicer stories told onstage.
The setting is mainly the bleak police station office, filled with little more than a desk and filing cabinets. In this production, directed by Matthew Dunster with set by Anna Fleischle, it glides back and forth on the stage, occasionally replaced by flashbacks to Katurian's childhood bedroom. Were her creative ideas shaped by the warped behaviour of her parents, which seems to involve mutilation and electric drills? Did she have an over-active imagination or did horrific things really happen in her youth?
We meet Katurian's meek brother Michal (Matthew Tennyson) who is in a cell. Did he take her stories literally and act on them? And if he did how responsible should Katurian feel? How can she make amends? What limits should society place on freedom of expression?
While the overall tone is horror, this is very much horror with humour. Paul Kaye – a very long way from Dennis Pennis – plays it straight and psychopathic, Pemberton's Tupolski has a more twisted comic sensibility, which actually makes him all the more macabre. Talking about being an alcoholic he says that his father was also an alcoholic but this is not the reason he drinks. Unlike his addicted father, he drinks heavily out of choice.
The performances are all strong. Lily Allen has the toughest role with all sorts of tonal shifts, having to be variously vulnerable and assertive and much more. What she lacks in range she makes up for in charisma. There is no clear conclusion, which some may find unsatisfying. Many will find it uncomfortable. But when the characters are in full flow there is no denying that you can't take your eyes off the stage. Listen with Mother this ain't.
Booking until September 2 here.
Pictures: Johan Persson
