REVIEWS
"Ricky's interview with the social worker! His vulnerability and anxiety, his desire to be good, the pinch of those past failures that we could sense, though he never articulated them, his controlled but desperate cry out for help. That was an absolutely beautiful piece of acting which I will remember for a long time"
"A stunning piece of verbatim theatre. Moving, thought provoking, and funny. Five excellent ensemble performances, sensitively directed."
"Insightful and well performed, if at times uncomfortable to watch. It gives a voice to homeless people - so often ignored or invisible."
"Really fantastic verbatim piece, surrounding the topic go homelessness. Affecting and unnerving. We love theatre that changes you.
★★★★★ Joanna Hetherington for The Spy In The Stalls
"Ricky Zalman neatly defines the witty quality of Man's wandering imagination."
"The company conveys a rapport which absorbs us into the worlds of these relationships, linked by their raw nature but different in mood and manner. Beckett pares his later works to the extreme, wasting no words and here we are compelled to hang on to his every one."
“John Patterson directs with immaculate precision and we are immediately caught up in the intrigue of this love triangle, devoid of stereotypical melodrama and romanticised fiction.”
★★★★ Jeff Prestige for Close-Up Culture
"Speeches are delivered in rapid fire bursts, but with sudden and unexplained pauses – and some hyena like laughing. A mistress, a wife and her cheating husband. Disjointed. Perturbing. But in a peculiar kind of way quite captivating.
It’s not easy to follow (Beckett wouldn’t want it any other way) but it is immersive thought- provoking theatre, superbly directed by Patterson and well acted by a vibrant cast."
★★★★ William Russell for ReviewsGate
“The skill the players – Rose Trustman, Ricky Zalman and Samantha Kamras – display as they cope with the language is formidable.”
“[But] it is, because of Beckett’s use of language and the quality of this particular production, an evening to relish, to risk attending. I really do not want to wait for Godot one more time but I could sit through these two pieces again any time.”
★★★★ Siân Rowland for London Pub Theatres
"The intensity and crisp diction from Rose Trustman, Ricky Zalman and Samantha Kamras make for a compelling piece and their timing is immaculate."
"Beckett is at his absurdist best here with all boxes ticked- disembodied heads in urns, odd little…pauses, cyclical meanderings and repetitive acts..."
"A really tight, superbly acted double bill designed not just to entertain but to provoke and make you think."
★★★★ Peter Brown for ActDrop
“In Play, Rose Trustman, Ricky Zalman and Samantha Kamras have to deliver rapid-fire utterances synchronised with the inquisitive light shining on them - and they do so with spot on timing.”
"Both of these plays place considerable demands on the actors, and all the cast here rise to their various challenges with great poise and deft efficiency."
“… Both these plays are more akin to paintings - you don't necessarily appreciate every detail in what you see at a gallery, but you may get the gist of what an artist was trying to convey.”
Dr Andy Wimbush - Institute of Continuing Education, University of Cambridge and Member of The Beckett Society
"Unlike in Minghella’s film, where M, played by Alan Rickman, is utterly numbed by the tryst, Ricky Zalman plays him with a kind of melancholy and bemusement. He didn’t seem resigned or calloused, but rather lost and frightened."
"And so, even though this play is about betrayal, pettiness, spite, privilege, and jealousy, and riddled with all the clichés of a pulpy romance, this production nevertheless manages to put us, not in the gloating position of the abominable fancy (the supposed entertainment of the saved by the torture of the damned), but instead into a rather lovely Schopenhauerian Mitleid that gazes on the suffering other and says to itself: thou art that."
"Angel Theatre Company and the Jack Studio should be congratulated for choosing to take the risk of putting on these plays which, like much of Beckett’s short work, are all too rarely performed. I was heartened to see a full house on a rainy night in Brockley, some way from London’s theatrical hubs. Patterson said he hopes to bring more of Beckett’s short plays to the stage next year. If he is successful in doing so, ardent Beckettians will be richly rewarded for making the pilgrimage to see them."