Reviewed by: Stage Whispers
Review by Mark Wickett | 11 March 2022

There’s a bare room, with a table and a few chairs. A man sits reading a file, drinking his coffee. A white board has the letters ‘AJP’ written on it, and through one of the two doors, another man peers through, looking nervous. ‘Liam?’ asks the man with a file, and he nods in agreement.

The start of this play suggests an interview by someone in authority – a manager in a workplace, a policeman – but the audience isn’t given much to go on. We only know that the man with the file is called Arthur, and he’s angry, asking questions of a defensive Liam, wanting to know where he was, what time was it, who was with him.

To say more would be to reveal the puzzle – by design, that’s best left for the audience to work out through the conversation that unravels over the table. But it is a story that explores masculinity, often of the toxic kind, and asks questions about choices and consequences.