Tusk Tusk

Synopsis

"Come on troops. Let's take check: Finn Bar, slightly ruffled but still in fighting form. Maggie, could do with a full night's sleep but otherwise all in order... Stay here. Don't answer the door." Once upon a time in what feels like another country, three children play hide and seek. Fifteen year old Elliott wears a crown, thirteen year old Maggie wraps herself in silk and little Finn draws on the walls. Together they watch a mobile phone intensely, willing it to come to life. Whose call are they waiting for and why are they home alone? As hilarious as it is heartbreaking, Tusk Tusk, Polly Stenham's second play, is a tale of family ties as an uncertain future circles.

Our Review:

2 April 2009

It’s always hard to follow a first big success with a second play, but Polly Stenham has pulled off a magnificent follow-up to That Face, mining a similar seam of personal material in her portrayal of three young siblings left to fend for themselves in a dysfunctional family.

Mum’s in charge, but only in the most haphazard of fashions, in both plays. But whereas Lindsay Duncan’s alcoholic incestuous wreck dominated That Face, this time round mother’s gone missing – she’s on anti-psychotic drugs and verging on the suicidal - just one week after the family (Dad died of cancer) has moved into a new apartment. The stage is strewn with packing cases and there’s no food in the cupboards apart from unwanted jars of organic jam. So young teenagers Eliot and Maggie – so named, possibly, in honour of the poet and Mrs Thatcher – have taken charge of their seven-year-old brother Finn and created their own brand of tri...

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Latest User Review

David Baxter - 30 April 2009:

It's probably fair to say that Polly Stenham has mother issues. After the incestuous monster in That Face the mother in Tusk Tusk is entirely absent: absent from the play and absent from the lives of her three children, left abandoned in a grim flat with no food and little money. Despite the heartbreaking scenario Tusk Tusk is frequently very funny, particularly the exchanges between the teenage brother and sister. The performances of the young, inexperienced cast members are astonishing, especially Bel Powley as Maggie (who bears an uncanny resemblance to my daughter's best friend), despite an occasional unintelligibility. However, you never quite forget that they are actors which means you can't totally buy in to the awfulness of their situation. Tusk Tusk is probably an even better play than That Face and Polly Stenham is clearly a remarkable talent but needs to be wary of the risk of becoming a one-trick pony....

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