Georgie Henley in Tarantula [Kate Hockenhull]

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TARANTULA began life at Southwark Playhouse where it was streamed during the Covid pandemic. Like Philip Ridley’s earlier work, The Poltergeist, which enjoyed a run at the Arcola in 2022, it’s an intense solo show which requires an exceptional performer to pull it off. Georgie Henley reprises her role and does not disappoint.

Wiebke Green’s production is played out on a bare stage. Toni is young, ambitious and bubbling with energy. She lives in east London with her parents, older brother Maz and baby sister Rochelle. She introduces us to each of them in turn, shifting between characters with a subtle change in tone or facial expression.

Really, she wants to talk about Michael – the first boy she kissed. When Toni helps out at a school event for the elderly, she meets and falls for Michael, the caterer’s teenage son. But on their first date they are the victims of a vicious attack that leaves Michael dead and Toni reeling. The spider tattooed on the killer’s neck continues to haunt her.

Fearful of further repercussions, Toni’s family eventually move away. Toni finds work and retains her sense of humour, but the trauma persists and she remains trapped in a web of denial.

Henley deftly switches between the upbeat, carefree Toni we meet at the beginning of the play and the troubled, ever-vigilant person she becomes. This is brilliantly encapsulated in her playful imitation of a sparrowhawk doubling as a cry of pain.

As ever, Ridley’s characterisation is spot on and Green’s nimble production makes good use of the Arcola’s thrust stage.

Ciaran Cunningham’s lighting adds edge to the moments when the cracks in Toni’s armour are revealed.

Henley (who played Lucy in The Chronicles of Narnia) shows impressive range and is simply sensational.

Until January 20
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