This is a seventy-five-minute, two-handed play which was first seen, briefly, at Theatre 503 in July 2025, and now receives a “World Premiere” staging at Finborough Theatre. It was written in 2019 by Zoe Hunter Gordon in association with High Tide, a Teesside-based mental health charity especially intended for young people and their parents/carers. It focuses on widening opportunities and raising aspirations as well as, in this particular case, helping them to deal with grief.
As the play begins, we hear the ‘thump thump’ beat of music playing in the room above, but in Charlie’s bedroom, it is eerily quiet as his sister, Katie (Catherine Ashdown), sorts through his things scattered upon the unmade bed, which is the only furniture in Mim Houghton’s sparse white traverse stage. Charlie has died, but we do not discover the circumstances until much later because Gordon drip-feeds us information as the play progresses.
It has been months since his death, but for Katie, the grief is still far too raw. As she is crying into a pile of his clothes, her former friend, Roni (Eileen Duffy), walks in, presumably at 1.17 am, eager to help. They have not spoken for months, and we gradually discover why, even though Katie repeatedly asks her to leave. Roni, however, stays, otherwise there would be no play, and we soon find out that Roni was sleeping with Charlie, unbeknownst to Katie, so she is also grieving.
This is a bleak piece of theatre, played out in real time, and is also intended to be claustrophobic, gradually building tension, but one wonders if that would have been more evident if the piece had been designed in a simple three-sided ‘box’ set with the audience viewing through the fourth wall: being able to look across at the audience on the other side of the room takes away some of the claustrophobia which the actors are trying to build.
Both Duffy and Ashdown work together superbly, being totally believable as young (early twenties?) people trying to cope with sorrow they just cannot understand. In particular Ashdown (Katie) shows all the character’s vulnerabilities and Gordon has cleverly written her as someone who is very bright, about to embark on a PhD, whereas Duffy portrays Roni, at least on the surface, as being more confident, and even her clothes (costume design Anouk Mondini) – leather jacket, cut-off jeans and DMs – suggest that she is better equipped to deal with the outside world. But, as her phone keeps pinging with calls and texts from her Russian boyfriend, we see that this ‘confidence’ is only a front.
Sarah Stacey has ensured that this night-time meeting is no shouting match, but has found it difficult to give the piece a momentum and purpose at times, as the writing almost appears to go round in ever-decreasing circles. The play never builds to a satisfactory climax, nothing is ever resolved – though perhaps, that is the point – and, to be frank, it is quite a depressing watch.
Having said that, one could not wish for a play that is more convincingly acted or played with more commitment.
Review by John Groves
How well do you know the people you love?
Katie and Roni were best friends, until they weren’t.
Now Katie’s brother is dead, and the two girls unexpectedly find themselves together again – in his bedroom.
Tonight they’re going to tell each other the truth.
Because the truth will set you free – won’t it?
A claustrophobic, unexpectedly funny new play about friendship, lies and the things we can’t say to the people we need most.
CAST
Catherine Ashdown – Katie
Eileen Duffy – Roni
CREATIVES
Written by Zoe Hunter Gordon
Directed by Sarah Stacey
Set Design by Mim Houghton
Sound Design by Sarah Spencer
Costume Design by Anouk Mondini
Dramaturgy by Sarah Stacey
1.17am, or until the words run out
Finborough Theatre
10 February to 7 March 2026
