Mudlarks

Synopsis

On the muddy banks of the River Thames, downstream from the bright lights of London, three boys hide from the police after a night of recklessness. Over the course of the freezing night their fears, secrets and dreams emerge, collide and combust revealing the desperate frustration of lives barely led but already ravaged. Essex-born Vickie Donoghue's powerful debut exposes the culture she grew up with and sees on a daily basis. With brutal honesty she explores how the impulse to dream is futile in the context of a reality that has no space for dreamers. Mudlarks heralds the arrival of an urgent new voice in British theatre.

Our Review:

24 September 2012

Three boys gather on the muddy bank of the Thames, two celebrating the actions of their night out, one horror-stricken and ashamed.  The next 80 minutes reveal the truth about their evening as well as the awful brutality of their hopeless lives out East, where the world beyond the Thames Barrier is a fantasy and the sucking, sinking mud of the riverbank invades everything.

This intense, absorbing three-hander is a strenuous experience for both audience and actors. Vicki Donoghue's dialogue pulls no punches: it is often a stream of invective, littered with expletives, insults and aggression, creating a kind of mesmeric rhythm.  Though it would be all too easy (and often desirable) to look away and blank it out, it is impossible – it's too real, too raw, too cruel. The performances are visceral and impassioned, and the ingenious use of real mud in the set design shows the characters getting dirtier and dirtier, more and more embroiled in their circumstances, witho...

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