Lifers is a powerful, thought-provoking piece of theatre which addresses the reality of incarceration and relationship building in the austere and rigidly controlled environment of the prison system in a compellingly candid way.
The play is centred upon Lenny, an elderly man serving a life sentence in HMP Drummond, and his interconnections with his fellow prisoners Norton and Baxter and prison wing officer Mark.
We meet the inmates as they bicker, squabble, bluff, banter and cheat whilst playing their regular poker game. At first, their crimes are not the focus of the story as a significant amount of time has passed since their sentencing, yet there is the ever-present feeling that these men have committed dreadful acts in their past, which introduces occasional elements of chill reality amongst the amusing exchanges and badinage between them.
It soon becomes clear that there is something seriously wrong with Lenny. In addition to his physical infirmity, there is a growing sense of mental destabilisation. Lenny is suffering from blinding headaches, moments of forgetfulness, disorientation and confusion and sudden flashes of anger. He mistakes the prison officer for his son and begins to find ordinary tasks beyond him, such as dressing or tying his shoelaces.
Whilst his fellow inmates at first take advantage of Lenny’s deteriorating mental state by cheating him out of his winnings at cards, Mark, the empathetic B block guard, is helpful, supportive and kind, playing along when Lenny thinks Mark is his son Simian, talking with Lenny about incidents from his son’s childhood and helping Lenny find some comfort in moments of past happiness; for example surprising his son with a trampoline on his birthday.
Lenny knows he is ill and tries to get medical help, but faces the obduracy of institutional bureaucracy, with the overworked and overwhelmed prison doctor, under immense pressure to minimise costs, preferring to prescribe Ibuprofen rather than spend money on a specialist referral.
Mark pulls in a favour and eventually gets the doctor to refer Lenny. The diagnosis is not good. Lenny has an inoperable brain tumour, and, in seeing his estranged son for the final time, has to finally face the consequences of the actions that delivered him his life sentence.
Lifers gives us a series of powerful, authoritative acting performances. The cast is uniformly strong and delivers believable and memorable characterisations.
Peter Wight’s portrayal of Lenny is carefully nuanced, subtly and intelligently tracking Lenny’s mental disintegration. Whether demonstrating the ferocity of his impotent, frustrated rage as he realises that he cannot get the medical help he knows he requires, or exhibiting the frightened vulnerability of a man lost in a fug of his own psychological breakdown, Wight’s performance is compelling and highly effective.
Lenny’s fellow “lifers”, Sam Cox as Norton, and Ricky Fearon as Baxter, breathe authenticity into their own characterisations. Norton is spiky, self-opinionated and carries many chips on his shoulders. Below the façade of hard-boiled cynicism, however, he cares about Lenny but cannot bring himself to show this for much of the play.
Baxter is laid back and intrinsically likeable, delivering a series of amusing witticisms and reflections. He looks to have come to terms with the reality of his situation and adopts an almost laissez-faire refusal to rock the boat of prison life. This is rewarded when he secures a transfer to an open prison. His accommodation with the system has, at least, partly delivered for him.
James Backway gives two very different, but equally convincing, performances.
Firstly, as the empathetic and caring Mark, the prison officer with a heart and a streak of heartfelt idealism about the need to introduce humanity and flexibility into an ossified bureaucratic structure. His leitmotif is aptly summed up by his exchange with Sonia, where he asserts, “… People are the system. How are we meant to keep the personal out of it? If we don’t let the personal in, we may as well be zookeepers.”
Secondly, as the cold, intense and unforgiving Simian, Lenny’s son, who is simply unable to expunge his bitter animosity towards a man whose abominable actions caused the irreparable breach between father and son. Even as Lenny approaches death, Simian cannot mitigate his abhorrence of his father. He, like Lenny, will never find relief from his own life sentence of pain and misery.
Mona Goodwin, as Sonya and Dr Wells, gives us an interesting study of two cogs in the regulative and jurisdictional bureaucratic edifice. Both are clear-eyed, occasionally verging towards the cynical, yet aware that they are battling against the sea of restrictions and economic imperatives that stifle any form of individualism and empathy that would ordinarily come to the surface. Sonia sums up a fundamental tenet of this play in her observation to Mark that “…we have a duty of care; we do not have a duty to care.”
Lifers is a serious play that deals with serious issues. It challenges our conceptions, and preconceptions, about crime, punishment, redemption and what “justice” really means.
It is concerned with the dichotomy of being human, and surviving as an individual in a rigid, inflexible bureaucratic structure.
The production is part of the Synergy Theatre Project, which commissions new plays to provide fresh insights on criminal justice and the penal system, and, as such, is utterly convincing in both its depiction of prison life and its effect upon the individuals involved on both sides of the prison population.
Whilst the production does not hide away from the reality of prisoners’ crimes and life on the inside and isn’t for the faint-hearted, the narrative is leavened with a fair sprinkling of dark humour and lucid poignancy that serve to accentuate the gripping and compelling nature of this play.
An absorbing and rewarding night at the theatre.
Review by Johnny Oxford
Inside the walls of HMP Drummond, Baxter, Norton and Lenny pass the time with poker, banter, and the kind of gallows humour only lifers can muster.
When Lenny’s body starts to give out, young prison officer Mark keeps an eye on him. What begins as a duty of care becomes an unexpected friendship, exposing the cracks in a system built to punish, not to support.
Darkly funny and unflinchingly honest, Lifers challenges what we think we know about crime, punishment, and redemption. Do some crimes make a second chance impossible? And when the world moves on without you, what does justice really mean?
A compelling look at ageing, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.
James Backway – Mark
Sam Cox – Norton
Ricky Fearon – Baxter
Mona Goodwin – Sonya
Peter Wight – Lenny
Evan Placey – Writer
Esther Baker – Director
Katy McPhee – Designer
Stella Cecil – Costume Designer
Tony Simpson – Lighting Designer
Sarah Weltman – Sound Designer
Neil Grutchield – Dramaturg
Nadine Rennie CDG – Casting Director
Synergy Theatre Project presents
LIFERS
Southwark Playhouse Borough
1 to 25 October 2025
