No one is innocent in stark, powerful thriller at Kenilworth’s Priory

A deserted, semi- derelict house that was once the site of a fatal tryst is the setting for this stark psychological thriller.

Robin (Daryll Hughes) and Linda (Rachel Anne Johns) are twins. On their twenty-first birthday they invite – lure would be a better word – their mother Helena (Zoe Lander) to the place where she met her lover, their father. Helena has not seen her children since they were born. She had tried to have an illegal late abortion, but when that failed the children were taken into care, suffering from anoxia and considered ‘at risk’.

The damage done is teased out mercilessly in this play of revelation and revenge. The twins make a formidable couple, though the real power is in Linda, who we gradually realise is not only wounded by her unpromising origins, but driven mad by them. Her brother Robin is the instrument of her revenge, a simple lad, more obviously damaged than she, and more vulnerable. Nevertheless, he too is complicit.

The playing in this taut three-hander (three other parts are involved but they are minor, though significant in terms of plot) is sustained with a level of angst that could at times have done with just a little more light and shade.

Rachel Anne Johns’ performance as Linda was a tour-de-force of barely controlled childish anger. Zoe Lander had perhaps the most difficult part as Helena, who suffers a little too bravely at the hands of her children. She is the victim of more than one emotional scam. Darryl Hughes played the poor, frightened brother with sympathy and skill. John Evan’s direction kept the pace up; and the set, as ever at the Priory, was superb.

This is a powerful, disturbing performance that plays with issues of fidelity, hope, incest and love, as a cat might play with a mouse. No-one is innocent, least of all the children.

Nick Le Mesurier