The Walworth Farce review

Rachelle Diedericks plays Hayley as both emotionally needy and painfully naive, oblivious to the danger she’s in when she follows Sean home. Though she’s only rarely the focus of the plot, she plays out a complete, largely wordless story of her own, at first entertained and then horrified by the farce she’s become trapped in.

There’s a fragile tenderness between the two brothers, played with great commitment by Emmet Byrne and Killian Coyle, who communicate in signs and whispers when they can find a moment out of Dinny’s earshot. Both are haunted and harried, desperate to escape but aware, deep down, that they’re unable to cope with the outside world. As Dinny, Dan Skinner walks a fine line between deadpan comic delivery and outright menace. He’s a ruthless manipulator, relentlessly gaslighting his sons, quick to deploy violence when his coercive control slips. Despite the character’s grotesqueness, Skinner works hard to evoke some sympathy for this exiled shell of a man, unable to face up to the consequences of his own destructive actions.

Composer Joseff Harris provides a soundscape of rumbling traffic, sirens and hissing bus hydraulics that drift in from the street outside. During the play’s longer speeches, these ambient sounds give way to brief passages of soft, lyrical melodies. Anisha Fields’ detailed set places the family’s grimy bedsit within a stark scaffold of red metal bars. The flat is lousy with peeling wallpaper, dented appliances and threadbare carpets stained with shoe polish, crumbling in around the dysfunctional world that the characters have created for themselves.