Play within a play has unexpected twists
“Scared to Death” was due to open in 24 hours and director Michael Prentice [Ben Smith] was frantic that not all his actors were word perfect and there were still technical difficulties. He was reviving a play that had never actually had an opening night, hence the title “The Revival”.
The Revival
Performed at The Priory Theatre, Friday 25 October 2025 [until 01 November 2025].
Director: Connor Cunningham.
“Scared to Death” was due to open in 24 hours and director Michael Prentice [Ben Smith] was frantic that not all his actors were word perfect and there were still technical difficulties. He was reviving a play that had never actually had an opening night, hence the title “The Revival”.
Much of the first act mirrored the opening scenes of “Noises Off”. With dry humour the cast bickered and insulted each other and the director, and the rehearsals kept getting derailed. In this play within a play, Ben conveyed a man who was desperate for success and had mortgaged his house to put on this production. His tension and stress became evident as he stormed up the aisles muttering and even shouting from the upper circle as he tried to address issues with Clive [Paul Sanders] the techie. Paul did particularly well as he was cast at short notice due to the original cast member having to withdraw.
Several of the actors played two parts, one in The Revival and a very different character in Scared to Death. Alex Brown was suitably insouciant as Hugo, pointing out that Michael had cast the attractive Sophie [Rose Bird] simply for sexual favours. In Scared to Death, Alex played middle class toff Timothy. Rose was impressive switching between Sophie’s American accent and her Scared to Death role as Betsy, with intentionally and inept stilted dialogue and mispronunciations.
Alison [Emma Ritson] was endlessly and unrealistically optimistic about the production in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. Jo Banbury gave a magnificent performance as the very experienced actress Diana, oozing cynicism with cutting barbs. In Scared to Death she had an excellent Eastern European accent as Zelda, the medium who came to conduct a séance.
The Revival took a darker twist when Gillian Heath [Natasha Lea], professor of theatre history, burst in to warn of the dangers of staging Scared to Death because of the murderous history associated with the original attempt to stage it. Natasha’s sharpness of attire matched the sharpness of her dialogue and she initially brought an intensity to the play that had been lacking, but even her explanation became rather wordy. Some scenes were rather ponderous and there was sometimes too much exposition so the tempo slowed.
Director Connor Cunningham did a great job in keeping his actors true to whichever part they were playing in either play and cleverly using the aisles and auditorium entrance at the rear of the theatre to add drama. A clever touch from the creative team was to produce a programme for Scared to Death within The Revival programme. There are no spoilers from this reviewer as to how the plays panned out.Get a ticket and find out.
Tickets from: www.priorytheatre.co.uk
Charles Essex