Review: VILLAGE IDIOT, Theatre Royal Stratford East

The town of Syresham is about to be bulldozed so that the "townies" can have an easier commute. Everyone had to sign a compulsory purchase order and have made life plans elsewhere. Everyone except Barbara, Harry and Peter's eccentric grandmother. She's an antisocial elder who throws things at children if they dare to get too close. Her eldest grandchild, Peter, has moved to the city and become one of the men who want to tear her home down. Harry, the youngest neurodivergent lad with a complicated crush on Debbie, who's disabled herself, still lives with her in the village, indulging her problematic tirades with hilarious eloquence.

Samson Hawkins's play is great fun, but it's a complex one. This good-hearted comedy-cum-moral whose identity is defined by precise British sit-com humour (with all the good and bad that comes with it), is threatened by a sense of inauthentic working class ideals. However, if we give in and welcome the satiric idyll of South Northamptonshire, we'll find a collection of peculiar characters who keep edging and retreating from political incorrectness written with idiosyncratic flair.

Barbara (Eileen Nicholas) is an unconsciously biased old lady from a generation that accepted racism as custom, not seeing anything wrong with it; Kevin (Mark Benton), Liam (Joseph Langdon) and Debbie's father, is perceived as the rough-around-the-edges iron-fist ruler of his house of travellers but loves his children unconditionally.

The younger crop is the most fascinating. Peter is a selfish, ableist social climber who looks down his nose at his old friends, while Liam is the closeted childhood friend he ruthlessly sleeps with without realising his feelings. Harry and Debbie are the true delight of the piece and its strongest point.

Hawkins introduces individuals, not disabilities. Portrayed by Maximilian Fairley and Faye Wiggan the pair are an accepting, hilariously caustic presence who steal the scene. They pack a punch, unsparingly calling out the injustice they experience. Village Idiot might be described as a show about the dangers of gentrification and the irreversible damage of emotional carelessness, but it's also an astute exploration of how to navigate relationships and progress.

Directed by Nadia Fall, it features a stunning set design by Lily Arnold. Tall trees have taken over most of the space, which is enclosed by an astro-turfed proscenium that's regularly closed by a ruched red curtain. Vegetable awards and a drag performance by Labey are inter-scene vignettes, lightening up the stakes in a sarcastically whimsical fête.

By the end, the production grows into a bucolic fever dream. Hawkins's debut launches a writer with enormous potential and distinctive wit; his dialogue flows naturally, lifelike and eloquent while his characters are weirdly lovable in their sometimes controversial nature.

While it's slightly overlong and runs over the promised two hours and 20 minutes inclusive of an interval, the production is an exciting springboard across all areas of it from the veterans to the new talent.

Village Idiot runs at Theatre Royal Stratford East until 6 May.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

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