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Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

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If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging

Boys town: Eyes Closed, Ears Covered @BunkerTheatreUK

In the year since opening, The Bunker at Southwark has established itself for new and experimental pieces. Alex Gwyther’s Eyes Closed, Ears Covered is no exception. It’s a dark and confusing world where laughs and kicking about is a cover for something more sinister.

It opens with an incident on the beach in Brighton in the late eighties. A boy’s been attacked and the police arrest two boys and question them about the events of the day.

The two boys questioned, Seb and Aaron, had planned the day for weeks. They’ve planned and saved enough money and are going to bunk off school. But something has gone horribly wrong.

There’s Aaron (Danny-Boy Hatchard), the cocky yet short-fused one. He’s got the plan to make it happen. And it was Seb’s (Joe Iris-Roberts) idea of the wide-eyed to visit his mum in Brighton. They seem like ten year olds as they bounce off each other and run about the stage recounting their mate ship.

But as they tell their stories separately neither seem to provide a credible account of the day. And a darker tale about loss and domestic violence beings to emerge.

In the second half, Seb’s mother Lily (Phoebe Thomas) appears as a flashback to the events before the beach. These events show her attempts to make life seem normal for her and Seb. Yet it becomes clear the dark and violent situation both characters were in.

The inspiration for this piece of new writing was after Gwyther observed two boys skipping school. But the piece builds to explore domestic violence and its wider impacts in a thoughtful and frank way.

It’s a slick production. Clever lighting and intense performances from the three cast members make the piece shocking and evocative. A disturbing and chilling new piece of writing.

Directed by Derek Anderson, Eyes Closed, Ears Covered is at the Bunker Theatre until 30 September.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️


Photos by Anton Belmonté

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