Theatre Reviews: Punch; The Women Of Llanrumney
Lashing out and punching up
A heavy week at the theatre this week as the two plays I saw tackle guilt, grief, death, and slavery. Enjoy…
Punch - Young Vic
Written by James Graham
Based on the book Right From Wrong by Jacob Dunne
Directed by Adam Penford
Production design by Anna Fleischle
2 hours 25 minutes
The Young Vic is slightly too close to my office so I can’t help but arrive far too early. Thankfully they didn’t seem to mind me taking up valuable space in the bar and pretending to read a book. Inside the auditorium I was pulled away from literary Italy to the harsh urban landscape of Nottingham; the stage a brutal combination of concrete, metal railings, and a crudely drawn cityscape.
Playwright James Graham has really entered his golden era. At the National Theatre his hit Dear England is having its second staging between a West End run and a national tour. He is a verified hitmaker and initially wrote Punch for his hometown Nottingham Playhouse, but it has made its way south and the inevitable West End transfer is in the bag.
Like many of Graham’s hits the first half of Punch focuses more on information delivery than storytelling as scenes end as soon as they begin. The cast switch characters at breakneck speed as David Shields remains the only consistency as lead character Jacob. Jacob is telling us the story of his youth and does so with energetic, distractingly theatrical, flair. He sprints around the stage, flashes backwards and forwards in time, mythologising his life and skirting around the issue at hand. The incident he doesn’t want to talk about is the night he punched a stranger on a night out, and the stranger never got up again.
After the interval the show slows down and scenes stop flashing by in a montage - at last Jacob and the audience can take in the reality of what he has done. The consequences of the fatal punch are painfully laid bare as we see the impact on Jacob, his family, and the parents of the man he killed. The centrepiece of the whole production is a raw moment of humanity as Jacob sits down with the couple whose son he took from them. That scene was worth the ticket price alone and showed how intimate Graham’s writing can be when he gives it space to breathe.
Punch is exactly what it sets out to be - entertaining theatre with a message and a heart. It sucks you into Jacob’s world and spits you out with a lot to think about. The ensemble cast nimbly guide the audience through numerous characters and settings with little more than an artifical underpass to aid them. And as Jacob, poor David Shields is always in motion - physically and emotionally bearing the brunt of a long and draining evening.
Not an evening of escape, but well worth seeing.
Seat: Stalls, C28 - £21
I think this seat was technically restricted view as it was off to the left and almost level with the front of the stage but incredibly views and a proximity that allowed me to see that the tears were all real.
Show: ★★★☆☆
Seat: ★★★★★
Punch runs until 26th April and transfers to the West End from 22 Sep 2025 to 29 Nov 2025.
The Women of Llanrumney - Stratford East
Written by Azuka Oforka
Directed by Patricia Logue
2 hours 15 minutes
Stratford East is a gem of a theatre hidden amongst the shopping centres that surround Stratford station. The trip involves evading the chaos of Westfield, navigating a square filled with vocal preachers, and finally the Victorian glory of Stratford East can be found next to a sadly abandoned Picturehouse.
Yesterday was the final day of performances for The Women of Llanrumney - a show that originated in Cardiff’s Sherman theatre and focusses on one of three plantations owned by a Welsh enslaver in Jamaica. The story centers on Annie (Suzanne Packer), a slave who finds herself conflicted between her misguided loyalty to plantation owner Elisabeth (Nia Roberts), and the daughter she has tried to forget, Cerys (Shvorne Marks). We arrive in the plantation at the end of its lifespan - revolution is in the air and rot is setting in.
Britain’s involvement in slavery is not one we’re keen to talk about. While Brits will head to America and make 12 Years a Slave, on our home turf we prefer more optimistic stories like Belle. I can imagine how confronting it felt for a Welsh audience to see the crimes committed abroad brought home for examination. I know that as a white Englishman the whole performance was deeply uncomfortable to watch.
Debut writer Azuka Oforka does let the audience have their share of light relief as we are prompted to laugh at both the farcical plantation owner and the slave who has allowed herself to believe that there might be some humanity left to appeal to. In many ways it was the light relief that produced some of the play’s most insidious moments. The images that will stay with me will be the white cast pantomiming centre stage while their black counterparts stood in the shadows in silence. The cast give everything they’ve got and are as powerful in silent rage at the sides as they are when screaming defiantly on a tabletop.
Chilling for its recency and locality, The Women of Llanrumney is a long way from Downton Abbey. And all the better for it.
Seat: Stalls, B7 - £10
Few theatres reward you for avoiding the West End as well as Stratford East. I was dead centre and in the second row. Yes I had to look up during a short veranda scene but I will happily pay less to sit so very close.
Show: ★★★★☆
Seat: ★★★★★
The Women of Llanrumney has ended its run.