Review: Heart Wall (Bush Theatre)

Review by Sam Waite

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Certain subjects are so universally, so thoroughly understand by the wider population, that they serve as constant inspiration for new work. Chief among these topics is grief, always relevant and always far too easy to connect with regardless of how different a character’s life may be from our own. In Heart Wall, Kit Withington’s new play at the Bush Theatre, two different states of grief intermingle as a return home stirs up pain both old and new.

Franky is back in her hometown for the first time in too long, having not see her parents for over a year and old friends for even longer. Staying first for the weekend, and then a few days, and then an indeterminate length of time, she claims finding her lost childhood rabbit as the reason to hang around, but doubts about her London life and her frayed connections to home soon become clear. Hanging over her parents’ connections with Franky and with each other is something festering, pushed just out of view, and even the local pub carries the uncomfortable stench of pre-mourning its soon-to-be record-holding landlady.

The world of The Sun Inn is fully realised from the offset, including the preshow entertainment. As they enter the theatre, audience members are presented with QR codes allowing them to request a song to serenade their fellow theatregoers with. Embarrassing? Absolutely. Entertaining? Always! Kit Withington’s script maintains this touch, karaoke being introduced as a regular choice from Valentine, current pub manager and grandson of Eileen, soon to be the nation’s oldest landlady. While this allows for the pub scenes to feel lived-in and fully organic, something unfortunately lacking in the scenes in the family home.

Katie Greenwell, as a show’s director, does a nice job of separating the scenes set in Franky’s parents’ house, with Simisola Majekodunmi’s shifts in lighting helping to highlight that we are in a new space. Still, something about the scenes at The Sun Inn feels more natural, whether because of Hazel Low’s strong set design or because of the more wide-ranging options for how to use the space than the cast being limited to the very edges. Greenwell’s direction brings the pub itself to life, her cast’s free reign of the old-fashioned space perfectly capturing an old favourite that how overstayed its welcome, and is underserved by its community.

Leading the cast as Franky, Rowan Robinson does well with a role which requires her to be bubbly, approachable, but easy to come to dislike. Eventually called out on behaving as if the town and its residents freeze in place when she departs, Franky is given a palpable sense of aimlessness and lack of belonging through Robinson’s performance. Her parents, played by Deka Walmsley and Sophie Stanton, are each keeping secrets about how they are coping with the long-term effects of grief, and both Walmsley and Stanton navigate these treacherous ups and downs beautifully, even as Stanton’s role in particular becomes increasingly secondary.

Rounding out the cast is another pair of strong performers, with Aaron Anthony as barman and landlady’s grandson Valentine, and Olivia Forrest as Franky’s childhood friend, possibly her only friend, Charlene. Both Charlene’s longstanding identity as a party girl and her continual steps into adult career and life choices are navigated ably by Forrest, giving real weight to a heated moment towards the end of the show which could fall flat was Charlene less believable. Anthony, meanwhile, brings a genuine charisma and subtlety of emotion to Valentine, who has clearly fought hard to maintain his affable demeanour even as his nan drifts further into dementia and his pub is falling apart around him – literally, thanks to some clever moving parts which allow Low’s set to show the passage of time.

It's possible that the limited scope of these two old friends' inner lives is by design, to demonstrate how detached Franky is from this place and how little their own tribulations seem to factor in. If this is the case, it unfortunately doesn't always come across. Withington's characters are strong, and do have ample complexities, but the text's pacing doesn't allow this to develop as fully as it could, introducing new depths rapidly in places but moving too slowly through Franky's overlong visit in others to allow this growth to come across. When Withingon does expand on these characters the work becomes even more moving, but a sense of inconsistency takes its toll in other moments.

In its final moments, the themes building beneath the surface of Heart Wall do rise to the top, and the last scene is a compelling, human moment which ties everything neatly together without losing those unanswerable, deeply human questions loss leaves with us. At 100 minutes, the show is perhaps a touch too slow to get going, and lingers a short while too long in places where it ought to forge ahead. Still, what lands successfully does so beautifully, and there’s something almost achingly familiar about this slice of small town living, and of someone trying to return to a place and a group of people they’ve put such distance between.

Heart Wall plays at the Bush Theatre until May 16^th

For tickets and information visit https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/event/heart-wall/

Photos by Harry Elletson