Small Hotel with Ralph Fiennes at Theatre Royal Bath – review

Ralph Fiennes’ season at Theatre Royal Bath has already given us a bold new David Hare and an actor-focused As You Like It. How better to close it than with a soft-shoe shuffle. In Small Hotel, Fiennes – ever the shape-shifter – adds “tap dancer” to his formidable repertoire.

But Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s one-act play offers more than just theatrical novelty. It’s a curious, elliptical 90 minutes that drifts between domestic realism and metaphysical dreamscape. Like a daydream, it feels both vivid and hazy, its details dissolving into metaphor just as we try to grasp them.

The plot circles around Larry, a talk show host spiralling through a reckoning. He arrives on stage in a bloodied shirt, shadowed by a one-eyed bartender slash lounge singer crooning 1950s standards. From there, the play slides inward. We watch him preparing to interview the ex-partner he hasn’t seen in 20 years, her star now eclipsing his. We meet his mother, alcoholic and acidic, curled on a sofa and spitting charm and vitriol in equal measure. Through glitchy video calls, he connects with his twin brother Richard, housebound, lost, and craving intimacy.

Fiennes is compelling as Larry: a man hollowed by shame, eyes often lowered as if trying to avoid the truth. He’s less convincing as a charismatic host; his star aura resists that kind of populist ease, but he commands the stage with undeniable presence. His scenes as Richard, played opposite himself on screen, quietly display his range. The final moment is a subtle coup de théâtre, proof that not all theatrical surprises need to shout.

If Grace Pervades, earlier in the season, didn’t fully serve its star, Small Hotel keeps him at its centre, though one wishes Lenkiewicz had let her ideas breathe more. Themes of family, identity, regret, and power in relationships surface and shimmer but are rarely allowed to deepen. As a one-act, it feels like a sketch for something richer.

Still, it fascinates, and not least because of the strength of the ensemble. Rosalind Eleazar is magnetic as the ex-pulled back into Larry’s orbit. Her poise on the sofa speaks of years in the public eye; her moments of collapse carry the weight of private anguish. Francesca Annis, as Larry’s mother, rasps every line like a poem dragged through ash. Her movements are soaked in years of drink and damage. The moment she asks Larry to confirm she was once beautiful feels loaded (perhaps a sly nod to her real-life history with Fiennes). Rachel Tucker, too, makes her mark as a spiritual chorus figure, her voice swelling to fill the theatre, her feet forever tapping out time.

Director Holly Race Roughan keeps the pace taut and the tone elusive. Luke Halls’ video design flickers between old train timetables and pulsing static, anchoring us in a purgatorial world where memory and reality bleed together.

As a closing note for Fiennes’ season, Small Hotel is a quiet, thoughtful choice, one that leans into the experimental rather than the crowd-pleasing. There are whispers that Brian Cox may be planning a season of his own. If so, perhaps we’re witnessing the return of the actor-manager, an old tradition reborn with modern flair. Stars. Theatre still needs them.