Theatre Review - Some Demon
Amy Beth Hayes in Some Demon [Ellie Kurttz]
IT’S hard to believe Laura Waldren’s blistering drama, focusing on the relationships of four women thrown together in an eating disorder unit, is her first full-length play. Winner of the 2023 Papatango Prize, Some Demon is a hard-hitting tour de force.
Eighteen-year-old Sam (Hannah Saxby) plans to go to university. After a traumatic spell in hospital, she’s voluntarily joined the understaffed NHS unit, desperate to recover before studying at Hull.
Zoe (Sirine Saba) is older, apparently wiser, and has been in and out of the facility for years. Mara (Leah Brotherhead) is anxious and volatile. Nazia (Witney White) wants to get better so she can marry her fiancé.
They don’t have much in common except for their unhealthy relationship with food, but Zoe and Sam bond over a love of Talking Heads.
Every day they meet for meal plans, group therapy and to share “helpful” or “challenging” thoughts. They are monitored by two key nurses, the largely sympathetic Mike (Joshua James) and Leanne (Amy Beth Hayes) whose controlling manner occasionally rubs up the patients the wrong way.
Gradually we realise that the women need the regulation of the unit and staff in order to keep them safe from their inner voices which repeatedly work against them.
Waldren cleverly confounds expectations. Mara, who appears the most unstable, manages to still her inner demons enough to be released. Zoe’s pragmatism masks the depth of her illness.
Some Demon may not have the slick production values of a West End show, and it’s undeniably dark and intense, but Waldren’s assured script absorbed me from start to finish. It’s sensitively directed by George Turvey who draws out terrific performances from the six-strong cast.
Don’t miss.
Until July 6