Review: IVY TILLER: VICAR'S DAUGHTER, SQUIRREL KILLER, The Other Place, Royal Shakespeare Theatre

Bea Roberts' new play (part of the RSC's Mischief Festival 2022) has echoes of Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem and Simon Stephens' Herons - not bad antecedents for a production that was postponed in 2020 (you'll know why) but lands right in the heart of the Zeitgeist in 2022.

Ivy has lost her alcoholic mother after spending her twenties caring for her and, one suspects, lost her emotionally closed off father many years earlier. She is over-invested in her village's voluntary group that seeks to protect the red squirrel, a goal she pursues primarily by shooting and dispatching its grey squirrel competitor. She's bright, but socially awkward, caring but destructive and too needy ever to be needed. She's an example of how the old 20th century certainties of rural (and small town) life have disappeared and, with nothing else to occupy young people's emotional imagination, the door is left open to conspiracy theories, extreme politics or (more benign of course) niche hobbies rushing in to fill the gap.

When the group finally expels all the greys allowing the reds to live in peace, it dissolves itself without a moment's thought for how it will crush Ivy's self-esteem, removing her only means of self-validation. It's almost voyeuristic seeing this happen, but also scary in the realisation that genuine alienation (and its consequences) must be so close for so many. Two years on from the play's planned premiere, democracy in the UK, the USA and beyond feels far more fragile and one wonders what the Ivys will do with all this disappointment - there's scant sign that mainstream political parties can address it after all.

That such terrifying prospects are fired by a 90 minute comedy-drama (there are many laughs, albeit I felt the guilt of the liberal metropolitan elite and stifled a few of my own) is a testament to the writing and the acting. Jenny Rainsford is tremendous as our antihero, creating a character at once attracting our sympathy and provoking our repulsion. She gets strong support from Nathan McMullen as the jailbird cousin who sees through the deadend future the village offers and seeks release through means legal and illegal. Jade Ogugua is also excellent as the teacher, Jade, fluent in the therapy-speak of 21st century but never far off sliding from passive aggression to actual aggression.

Director, Caitlin McLeod, maintains the pace well and gets full use from Milla Clarke's inventive set. Crucially (as with Chekhov, another inspiration I'm sure) she takes us to the brink of melodrama, but pulls us back just in time.

And, who knew that Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll" had a future in 2022? The question left hanging is whether the Ivys in Devon, in Northumberland and in Shrewsbury ("Oi don't even know way-air that is") have one too.

Ivy Tiller: Vicar's Daughter, Squirrel Killer is at The Other Place, RSC, Stratford Upon Avon until 5 November

Photo: The Other Richard

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