Children of the Night (Southwark Playhouse Borough)

Review by Lily Melhuish

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

At a time when UK club culture is shrinking fast, a piece like Children of the Night feels like both a time capsule and a rallying cry. Danielle Phillips’ bassline-driven coming-of-age tale reminds us what nightlife gave people: identity, escape, euphoria, and a place to belong. Set in 90s Doncaster, Children of the Night captures the thrill of a scene that once felt endless, and now feels endangered.

Lindsay, played by Phillips herself, bursts onto the scene with the unshakeable confidence of someone who has never taken “no” for an answer. We meet her on New Year’s Eve 1999, broadcasting a radio show from her dad’s shed as she professes her love for a hometown shaped by post‑Thatcher scars and unrelenting pride. Then she hits rewind, pulling us back to 1997, to the night it all began: drum and bass rattling through the walls, sticky floors underfoot, and the wide‑eyed naivety of youth. What follows is 90 minutes of unapologetic hedonism, pulsing like a DJ set that’s nostalgic but never rose-tinted.

With her GCSE results in the rear-view mirror, Lindsay only has one mission: get into Club Karisma, Yorkshire’s very own Berghain. She and best mate Jen pre-drink with a devotion that feels dangerously familiar: MD 20/20 sipped with straws like oversized sippy cups, fake IDs tucked into bras, and cigarettes flicked out of bedroom windows. The references come thick and fast - Yates, Spice Girls, Buffy - instantly sketching time, place and personality without slowing the pace as the 90s bangers blare.

The show is at its most exhilarating when it’s building Doncaster around us in vivid detail, the girls tearing across town like it’s a living map, dropping into the iconic ‘Codfather’ chippy before pinching their noses past ‘Piss Alley’. Lindsay affectionately calls the town “Yorkshire’s very own Vegas,” and the production somehow makes that feel true. It’s a vibrant trip down memory lane, or a crash course for anyone not from round these parts, and the passion pouring out of Lindsay makes it impossible not to get swept up in the thrill of it.

But this isn’t only a “remember the 90s” party piece. That first club entry becomes the gateway to a much messier story of escapism. One triumphant night spirals into a year‑long bender, tipping from self‑discovery into self‑destruction until a particularly chaotic evening forces Lindsay to face the music. The shadow of the UK’s first heterosexual HIV cluster hovers over the narrative too, a frightening reality that shaped attitudes toward sex, risk and responsibility.

Phillips’ spoken‑word script mirrors Lindsay’s all‑or‑nothing hunger. The rhythm is precise, performed like an unbroken stream of consciousness, and as a performer Phillips rises to the challenge. She’s magnetic, a live wire fuelled by teenage volatility, switching from joy to fury to fear in a heartbeat. The tricky rhymes land with soul, the humour with confidence, and the vulnerability with a sincerity that gives the play its emotional weight.

Charlotte Brown brings a winsome contrast as Jen: all nervous energy and breathless “This is amazing!” excitement. She’s more cautious than Lindsay, but that soon dissipates after one too many “Slippery Nipples” and a messy snog behind a fruit machine. As Lindsay’s father, Terry's raving days are behind him, but Gareth Radcliffe’s he still shows plenty of spirit in his portrayal. Radcliffe avoids caricature, showing a man whose best communication happens through music, humour, and character analysis of Coronation Street’s Gail Platt. His parenting style (sharing cigs, swapping tinnies, offering casual “if you get lucky, bag it up” sex advice) feels wildly out of step with modern standards but recognisable for the era.

Movement director Jennifer Kay keeps the production hurtling forward with physical storytelling. In a compact space, we ricochet between houses, taxis, staircases and dancefloors through synchronised choreography sharply timed with lights and music. Cigarettes and shot glasses appear and vanish like sleight of hand, and Jen and Lindsay move with the rhythm of a packed club, even when alone onstage. Hannah Sibai’s set and costume design cleverly evokes post‑Thatcher industrial greys while hiding colourful wired lights that pulse like Doncaster’s secret nightlife veins. A standout moment comes when the girls first face the legendary Karisma nightclub and the lighting (Jessie Addinall) casts a shadow that turns the building into a looming giant; intimidating yet irresistible. 

The one element that sometimes jars is the voiceovers of a presumably older Lindsay. Although not actual verbatim, the play being inspired by the testimony of 30 people, I would have liked some more roughness around the edges, something that felt more naturalistic to contrast the ultra-stylised physical storytelling. Similarly, the ending feels a little too tidy for a story that’s otherwise so enriched with contradiction. After all its go‑go‑go momentum, the play circles its final emotional point one beat too many. That said, I loved that Lindsay’s story took a route I wasn’t expecting, offering a version of hope that doesn’t demand purity or perfection, just change.

At its core, Children of the Night is a celebration of female friendship, of that dancefloor moment where you grab your best mate, sweat-drenched and sincere, and tell them you love them with your whole heart. It’s also a reminder of how complicated nightlife can be, especially for women and minorities, and how fun can sit right next to threat. Even when the play points out what was unsafe or misguided, it never sneers at its characters for wanting that escape. 

A remarkable debut from Danielle Phillips and Mad Friday Productions, Children of the Night is a night out you’ll never want to end.

Children of the Night plays at Southwark Playhouse Borough until 4th April. Tickets from https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/children-of-the-night/

Photos by Marc Brenner