Ned Costello and Elizabeth Connick [Charles Flint]

THE PITCHFORK DISNEY
King’s Head Theatre
3 stars

Originally staged at the Bush Theatre in 1991, The Pitchfork Disney received a mixed critical reception. Years later it was hailed as a defining work of British drama, credited with shaping the dramatic style known as “in-yer-face theatre”.

Set in one room of an east London house, Philip Ridley’s debut play continues to shock, disturb, frustrate and occasionally baffle.

Presley (Ned Costello) and Hayley (Elizabeth Connick) are 28-year-old twins living alone in their late parents’ home. A decade after their death, the siblings exist in a surreal, infantile limbo.

As the play opens, they indulge in childish banter about chocolate and visits to the corner shop.

The tone darkens as Presley shares apocalyptic visions of the world beyond. Gradually, we realise the front door is bolted shut and they appear to be protecting themselves from an unnamed threat. Is the room a sanctuary, a prison or a projection of the mind? Hayley suffers from nightmares and is sedated by her brother.

Elizabeth Connick and William Robinson [Charles Flint]

When Presley spies a stranger outside, he invites him in. Cosmo Disney (William Robinson), an entertainer clad in a red-sequinned jacket whose act includes eating cockroaches, imposes himself on the pair. He’s later joined by his masked partner, Pitchfork (Matt Yulish), the archetypal bogeyman.

Though the performances are strong, Max Harrison’s production tends toward a single emotional register. One longs for tonal variation – some light and shade to deepen the psychological ambiguity and relieve the claustrophobic intensity.

Ridley probes fear, the grip of unresolved trauma, and the paralysing influence of childhood monsters. Yet he enjoys pulling the rug from beneath us, ensuring nothing feels certain in his strange, unsettling vision. It’s both powerful and exhausting, but Ridley devotees won’t be disappointed.

To October 4
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