The Witness, Royal Court Upstairs - review

Outstanding stuff from Vivienne Franzmann, and if the BBC had any gumption, they’d film it instantly as a Play for Today
12 June 2012

It’s audacious to make such a prediction in mid-June but I’ll go for it anyway: if there is a finer new play than The Witness this year, I’ll be astonished. Vivienne Franzmann, Evening Standard Award-nominated for her debut Mogadishu last year, proves a master handler of both mood and tension, as she worries thrillingly at ideas of family and belonging.

Alex (Pippa Bennett-Warner, one of our best young acting talents) has dropped out of Cambridge, a fact she has kept hidden from widowed father Joseph (Danny Webb). Adopted as a child in war-ravaged Rwanda, Alex, who featured in photographer Joseph’s harrowing award-winning image of the conflict, is struggling to discover her own identity. Bright but disgruntled, she slouches about their well-heeled Hampstead home, which in Lizzie Clachan’s wonderful in-the-round design wraps itself luxuriantly around the audience.

The first half is a masterful two-hander of simmering tensions, as Joseph struggles to comprehend why his daughter would consider rejecting the life of Western comfort he has offered her. We could watch Bennett-Warner and Webb all night but the stakes shoot up in the second half with the arrival of a visitor from Rwanda. Cultural currents crash against each other, with director Simon Godwin marshalling skilfully. It’s outstanding stuff, and if the BBC had any gumption, they’d film it instantly as a Play for Today.

The Witness runs until June 30 (020 7565 5000, royalcourttheatre.com).

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