Welcome to Pemfort at Soho Theatre – review

This intriguing new drama from Sarah Power starts out like a whimsical sitcom before making a tonal handbrake turn to explore fundamental and urgent questions concerning guilt, atonement and misogynistic violence.

It’s set in the gift shop of a fictional historical pile, scene of a minor 13th-century skirmish known as “The Battle of the Bishops”, which is struggling to attract footfall. Nerdy Glenn (Ali Hadji-Heshmati) wants to drive engagement at the upcoming Living History event, while nature-lover Ria (Lydia Larson) is more interested in the local deer. Meanwhile, manager Uma (Debra Gillett) has taken on a new staff member, Kurtis (Sean Delaney), in a bid to aid his post-prison rehabilitation.

The early scenes are short and rather awkwardly spliced together, tending to start and end abruptly. But there’s a smattering of decent gags – such as when Uma breezily tells the woefully under-trained Kurtis he’s suffering from “imposter syndrome” – and the overall air is of Black Books crossed with Ghosts. But it suddenly changes gear when Kurtis and Ria’s burgeoning romance brings dark and disturbing secrets to the surface. After this point, it becomes a real “lean in” kind of a play, as the characters wrestle with an unenviable but fascinating moral dilemma.

Although it still feels a couple of drafts away from fulfilling its manifest promise, Power, in this her second play, is swimming in some deep and interesting waters. Each character has an intriguing backstory, whether it’s Uma’s status as a former drug addict (which drives her to help Kurtis), Ria’s zeitgeist-bucking desire to live in her rural hometown, or the neurodivergent Glenn’s relationship with his broken mother. She successfully shows how trauma, and its near-neighbour shame, are never far from any life, even those spent mostly in apparent idylls.

Director Ed Madden has a strong track record for stewarding thrilling new work – Yellowfin and Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons, for example – and this is no exception. His sensitive production also features four excellent performances, especially from Delaney, who manages to make Kurtis both believable and empathetic, which is no mean feat given the nature of his crime. A word too for Alys Whitehead’s detailed set, which successfully brings Pemfort to the heart of Soho.

The final moments are deeply affecting as Ria must deliver, effectively, her judgement of Kurtis, and decide the extent to which she can separate his past from his present. Power admits in a preface to the script that she isn’t entirely sure where she stands on this central question and, having seen it, nor am I. But that, to some extent, is the point. Theatre at its best is an artform of empathy, and here we’re asked to ponder the limits of empathy itself. This may not be the play I thought I was getting, but it’s certainly one I won’t soon forget.