Review: Drama is topical and brilliantly staged at Warwick Arts Centre

Warwick Arts Centre continues to support bold, experimental drama and The Believers fully deserves the encouragement.

It is a dark and multi-dimensional drama, produced by Frantic Assembly and Theatre Royal Plymouth.

Written by Bryony Lavery, it aims to probe the characters’ beliefs. It was brilliantly staged with creative lighting pinpointing the actors and rooms in the house where the action takes place against a background of total darkness. The strobe lighting and sinister loud music appealed to the young audience.

The topical plot, involving one family whose house is flooded being put up by their religious neighbours, turns into a tragedy.

There are excellent performances from all four actors. Joff (Christopher Colquhoun) and Marianne (Eileen Walsh) are the flooding victims and they have a problem daughter, Grace, who does not appear but is much talked about. Their neighbours, Ollie (Richard Mylan) and Maud (Penny Layden), believe in God but have an open relationship. Their daughter Joyous is apparently a paragon of virtue. This is not a happy mixture, as it turns out.

Director Scott Graham has created an impressive all-round production, but special mention must go to the lighting team

Peter Gawthorpe