The Unbelievers – Royal Court Theatre – Saturday 8th November 2025

(Rated 4/5) I was invited by friends to see ‘The Unbelievers’ as Nicola Walker was in it and they knew I like her. As I’ve said before anything with NW is an immediate “Yes” from me <3. Back when that lovely invitation came through to me, I then didn’t even bother to look up the play or what it was about. I confess I didn’t even notice it was written by Nick Payne, and nor did I recall when much nearer the time of going, what I had seen that NP had written! Just that his name sounded very familiar. And, it is only just before writing my experience of this production, that I realised Nick was the writer of ‘Constellations’, which I gave a 7/5 after seeing it back in 2012!!! It and the performances in it blew me away. If anyone wishes, they can look up my review, but suffice to say it seems to have made me friends with Physics and re-awakened a love of performance, which for some reason I’d lost a little. Nope, I don’t remember why!

So, not the least surprise that ‘The Unbelievers’ has at its heart a very clever idea around time (and space 😉) and is jam-packed with an exploration of the wide-range of human emotion (in this case in response to the missing of a loved-one) and a wide variety of human relationships. Nicola plays the mother of the missing person, and the play explores that fracturing feeling of time, and the sometimes-polar responses she has in her own psychological fracturing following her son’s disappearance with no explanation as to how or why. That desperate constant trauma of the not-knowing. Will she and the family ever get an answer as to what has happened?

‘The Unbelievers’ jumps around in time throughout the seven years it covers from the first moment of missing to – well seven years later! The scene is the same throughout, but with the family of characters related in some way to missing Oscar – or those attempting to help in the search for him – coming into or out of that scene in the family home. Those ‘off-stage’ sit or stand – as though waiting, worrying, contemplating – at the back of the stage behind glass screens so they can all be seen, and are always present. I found that a clever idea too. And in that presence also exaggerates the absence of that one key missing person, around whom absolutely everything revolves.

Nicola is phenomenal – no surprise either that she was or that I would say that I guess haha – and really does take us through the waves of reactions you’d expect in the circumstances – sometimes full-on breaking down, anger, hysterical laughter, crying in agony, disbelief or even scorn towards how her family are responding. It is a very much a blended family about whom you discover more and more in terms of individual characters and the dynamics between them as the play progresses. The ensemble – and it really is an ensemble piece – are terrific. The ‘action’ moves from the sublime to ridiculous and all in between. I have to admit though I personally enjoyed one of the most ridiculous scenes in which one character teaches everyone else about Puffins!

This play is not an ‘easy’ watch. As it jumps around in time, at first, I found myself trying to work out when we were in relation to the initial disappearance, and then coming to a kind of acceptance that it doesn’t actually matter. The agonies around loss like this – and I would imagine even more so when there may be no finding or answer/closure – are going to come and go not necessarily in any linear fashion. Of course, it is also exploring the heights and depths of emotion, with a constant tension as a thread throughout. So much so that at one point, as it happened during a séance-scene, I felt myself in the midst of a panic attack, and had to take some deep breaths and sips of tea to calm myself down! None of we three would say we enjoyed it as such, and one of my companions was very emotional at the end. It is likely to trigger anyone who allows themselves to engage empathically with it and the characters. Incidentally, they all – current partner, ex-partner, siblings, half-siblings, police, medic, parapsychology investigator etc etc – are written and performed exceptionally well with their own idiosyncrasies. Nobody is boring to the audience, even if they might be so, or even annoying or whatever else, to each other.

We had a funny experience when a town known well by us – due to a family connection – got mentioned as quite an obscure place (if I remember right) – and I couldn’t help laughing at that. Kind of a shame as I got distracted and didn’t take in quite why it was being mentioned or what happened there! One of my companions, meanwhile, was focused on trying to see if she could recognise the shops mentioned in the town and not doing so! Quite a funny incident personal to us. Sadly, a very unfunny incident also happened, mid-scene in which mouth swabs were being taken, a woman in black wearing a head-set came on stage and stopped the performers. We were all told we had to leave the auditorium. Someone in the audience had been taken ill. So, we had an unplanned interval of around twenty minutes! I just hope the person was ok. That certainly added anxiety to proceedings, but as the actors came back on stage, Nicola – as herself – gave a little smile – before heading back into character. I found that immensely comforting.

I tend to mostly avoid reviews before I go to productions, but having a quick scan through since, I realise it didn’t seem to ‘land’ with many. For me, it is not as good as ‘Constellations’, or at least as far as my memory of that is re-awakened by my Restricted Review of it. And, I guess, something feels missing in ‘The Unbelievers’ for me too, yet I can’t put my finger on what. Maybe, bizarrely, that reflects the nature of the play – something missing or you’re not quite believing.

TheUnbelievers – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2025

‘Anatomy of a Suicide’ – Royal Court Theatre – Tuesday 4th July 2017

(Rated 10/5 ) 

My ‘section’ of this review is highly likely to be very personal – not quite sure what will come out yet – will see in a few minutes – so before I go ahead I wanted to share a less personal but certainly ‘bang on’ review – shared by my lovely friend who booked us to see this production. From Time Out…

“***** Birch has crafted a rich, haunting, technically dazzling script. It is gut-level, subliminal: a depiction of tragedy as a disease that swims silently through the bloodstream.”

https://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/anatomy-of-a-suicide

Warning: the following contains spoilers and personal processing!

Now my turn… I had no expectations on this at all – aside from an intriguing and highly suggestive of darkness and trauma title – such things always fascinate me I’ll admit – I’d read nothing at all about it and knew nothing – not even the basic premise. So I learned all exactly as the script and actors taught me performing from start to finish. Now I don’t know what to write. I’m still struggling to find words, which kind of reflects the single word responses from Carol (Hattie Morahan) – the eldest of the three generations of women. The depth of emotion and trauma and lack of emotion as a result of trauma is palpable – like a penetrating vibe from actors to audience – there’s no hiding from it even though in her emotional shut-down – Bonnie (Adelle Leonce) – the youngest of the three - attempts to do so. And in between them we have Anna (Kate O’Flynn) – daughter of Carol, mostly absent-mother to Bonnie – whose effervescence and hyper-expressiveness are a stark contrast to the other two. All three actors are absolutely outstandingly brilliant!! I fell completely and utterly in love with them and they all had my fullest empathy also. The supporting cast were all equally as good – not just acting a multitude of characters but also moving scenery around and undressing/dressing the three leads onstage between scenes - An exceptionally good ensemble-piece. As actors say they can’t be good without good writing and this is probably the most-skilful, accomplished, sensitive, natural, deep yet concise, character-rich writing in a play I have ever encountered. Alice Birch is such a talent! I’m so envious! In this play she is writing three scenes at any one time – taking place on the same stage at the same time – linking them up beautifully and timing all the characters words to absolute perfection. It’s extraordinary! The timing of delivery had to be spot on and was. The actors were so in synch. In some ways it reminds me of one of my favourite films ‘The Hours’ – again three women in three different time periods – but the scenes were separated and the characters connected but unrelated. This play is structured so that the audience can watch all three scenes simultaneously without losing anything, which is pretty amazing!

And here comes the personal. This play resonated in so many ways with my own life experience – mind- and heart-blowing. I was witnessing this with goosebumps on my goosebumps and my eyes welling up with tears. Carol and Anna between them embody aspects of my own mother. Carol holds the quiet brooding drowning-in-despair aspect of Mum whilst Anna the hyperactive, talkative, edgy and ‘fun’/funny parts of her personality. Both characters actually so beautiful and tantalising - irresistibly attractive. As the title suggests suicide is forever casting a shadow over them/us and it’s a question of when not if. For me it was always a question of if with Mum. And I identified so much with Bonnie’s subdued, reserved and withdrawn character… who becomes a doctor(caring professional), who struggles in relationships with fellow human beings, who seems more devastated by the loss of her companion rabbit but who finds it so difficult to let go of the family home in which so many of her grandmother and mother’s dramas took place. Bonnie felt like an unhealed me. Yet what she expresses towards the end of the play struck the deepest most profound chord with me. She is determined there should be no possibility of having children – “I have to know – biologically, completely, with absolute certainty that I am where it ends… That it goes no further, no deeper, no longer… That it finishes here.” And then we are faced with the ultimate question at the very end of the play… can Bonnie also let go of it all emotionally and psychologically and let the house of the stage go and move on… Can she live her life? Can she finally engage?

This is the best play/production I have ever seen in my entire life. I’m not saying it is the absolute most-accomplished but with all its personal resonances it wins out. And happily with no big names in it! But an absolute wealth of talent! Yet again – as with my most recent review – I am writing this towards the end of the run and it is sold out. The Royal Court Theatre with its relatively small, intimate space is perfect for this play, though I do hope it transfers somewhere else so others get an opportunity to witness it. I had to have the script which was only £3. We ate in the Bar/Kitchen beforehand and I had a delicious gazpacho and we shared chips with mayonnaise, salad, Coronas and passion fruit crème brulee and tasty truffles – highly recommended. I happen to know the risotto is also very tasty ;)

Excellent Emotionally-Charged, Extremely Personally-Developing Experience!

Anatomy of a Suicide – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2017

‘Constellations’ - Royal Court at the Duke of York’s Theatre - Tuesday 4th December 2012

(Rated 7/5 ) 

I had a real struggle with physics at school – if only there had been a play like Constellations to see then to help me understand quarks and strings and parallel universes and Schrodinger’s cat in a box and similar concepts. I might then have had a hope, and not assumed it had to be the opposite of what I worked out, because I found it so hard to solve and confusing, that I thought maybe the opposite was right. Ironic as maybe in another universe or along another string (hm yes I still don’t fully understand strings (!)) the opposite maybe/is, right! Unfortunately in this one it wasn’t and I had to re-take my exam! But all that is in the past and with an idea like Constellations that past could be subtly or completely different depending on how I play it. In this case, in the story of physicist Marianne (Sally Hawkins) and bee-keeper Roland (Rafe Spall), the subtleties of possible play-outs of the relationship between them, the ways they play it/ act it are beyond phenomenal – out of this universe! I was in a funny mood when I went into this one – having a kind of lapse in passion for performance somehow – oh goodness did these two cure me of that… and then some! Two masters showing us the best of a masterclass in acting – how to express a full range of emotions combined with possible relationship dynamics and switch them at the clang/chink/fizzle of lights going off and on in split seconds – and keep it all fully believable throughout. Empathy hit the moment they both started. And they kept this up for a full seventy minutes. For a performance by actors to be that good though, they can’t do it alone. Yes, this really was two actors, both of whom I love – she especially for Happy-Go-Lucky, and he as the hilarious psychopath from The Shadow Line, and almost equally amusing and very Rafe Spall-ish interpretation of William Shakespeare in Anonymous – at their sensational best and the genius who enabled that is writer Nick Payne. I can honestly say I have never been so blown away by the intricacies and cleverly structured flow of a piece of writing since Audrey Niffeneger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife. I adored that book so much it found its way into my top five all-time favourite novels immediately and I felt so sad when I’d finished it! Constellations also harks back to Ground-Hog Day in terms of repeats of the same situation, ways of dealing with it and possible outcomes, though in my opinion Constellations is far superior and more intelligently done. The actors were also supported by superb direction by Michael Longhurst.  

This is the best thing since – whatever the last best thing was for me – and gets my fullest mark accordingly J

Constellations  – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2012

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