Cul-de-Sac,
Omnibus Theatre, London
Dates of run: May 27-June 14
Cast: Shereen Roushbaiani, Ellis J. Wells, Lucy Farrett, Callum Patrick Hughes, Behkam Salehani.
Running time: approximately two hours, 45 minutes, including interval
Writer/director: David Shopland.
“Do you think this is enjoyable for anyone to be around?”
It’s a very dangerous question in the mouth of Ruth Townsend, who is the aptly named wife of the overly frank Frank Townsend, the central couple of this tale of frustrated lives at the end of the line in London’s Zone 6.
Ruth, played by Shereen Roushbaina, is a former psychotherapist, who increasingly, as the play wears on, regrets marrying one of her clients, while we marvel that she did.
Frank (Ellis J. Wells), for his part, accuses her of competing with him for having suffered the deepest trauma. He could well be judging her by his own unhealthily competitive standards, exhibited in a love of board games as well as emotional games.
In keeping with the clichés of suburban farce, he twitches at the net curtains to obsess over the imposter car parked outside on his territory, while both he and his wife drive their bad behaviours with drink.
Also true to the cliché of alcoholics, they want everyone else to be drinking too. Hence, the other hapless inhabitants of the cul-de-sac, literal and metaphorical, are drawn into witnessing “this” and, as the port and sherry flow, become as shrill and overwrought as Frank and Ruth.
Lucy Farrett is Marie Gilchrist, the unfaithful, nervous-talking wife of the local vicar, while Callum Patrick Hughes gamely takes on the role of Simon Waller, a garden centre assistant abandoned by the childhood sweetheart who became his wife.
It’s all billed as an early mid-life crisis of the millennial generation, but for me there is nothing uniquely millennial about lives being based on suboptimal choices and lived out in less than desirable post codes.
If the answer to Ruth’s question is yes, it’s from those in the audience whose laughter suggests they enjoy comic exaggeration of what, if you are living through it, is as agonising of being the prey in a blood sport.
For the rest of us, we might find ourselves seeing the argument for leaving the social veneer intact and keeping the net curtains, if anyone still has them, tightly drawn.
Barbara Lewis © 2025.
Cul-de-Sac,
Omnibus Theatre, London
Dates of run: May 27-June 14
Cast: Shereen Roushbaiani, Ellis J. Wells, Lucy Farrett, Callum Patrick Hughes, Behkam Salehani.
Running time: approximately two hours, 45 minutes, including interval
Writer/director: David Shopland.
“Do you think this is enjoyable for anyone to be around?”
It’s a very dangerous question in the mouth of Ruth Townsend, who is the aptly named wife of the overly frank Frank Townsend, the central couple of this tale of frustrated lives at the end of the line in London’s Zone 6.
Ruth, played by Shereen Roushbaina, is a former psychotherapist, who increasingly, as the play wears on, regrets marrying one of her clients, while we marvel that she did.
Frank (Ellis J. Wells), for his part, accuses her of competing with him for having suffered the deepest trauma. He could well be judging her by his own unhealthily competitive standards, exhibited in a love of board games as well as emotional games.
In keeping with the clichés of suburban farce, he twitches at the net curtains to obsess over the imposter car parked outside on his territory, while both he and his wife drive their bad behaviours with drink.
Also true to the cliché of alcoholics, they want everyone else to be drinking too. Hence, the other hapless inhabitants of the cul-de-sac, literal and metaphorical, are drawn into witnessing “this” and, as the port and sherry flow, become as shrill and overwrought as Frank and Ruth.
Lucy Farrett is Marie Gilchrist, the unfaithful, nervous-talking wife of the local vicar, while Callum Patrick Hughes gamely takes on the role of Simon Waller, a garden centre assistant abandoned by the childhood sweetheart who became his wife.
It’s all billed as an early mid-life crisis of the millennial generation, but for me there is nothing uniquely millennial about lives being based on suboptimal choices and lived out in less than desirable post codes.
If the answer to Ruth’s question is yes, it’s from those in the audience whose laughter suggests they enjoy comic exaggeration of what, if you are living through it, is as agonising of being the prey in a blood sport.
For the rest of us, we might find ourselves seeing the argument for leaving the social veneer intact and keeping the net curtains, if anyone still has them, tightly drawn.
Barbara Lewis © 2025.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2025 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre