FROZEN is a play from 1998 by Bryony Lavery that consists of a series of monologues and two or three-person scenes. It explores the events that lead to a woman confronting the serial killer who murdered her young daughter.Powerful in an intimate theatre, it's hard to think what the rationale was behind reviving it, over exposed, on a big stage amidst the Edwardian opulence of the Theatre Royal Haymarket and when everyone’s hungry to see FROZEN the Disney Stage musical.
Perhaps it was simply that TV star Suranne Jones wanted to do a play and this one has big speeches for her to get her teeth into and only requires a small cast, so it's cheap.
She is a terrific actor, of course. Her performance in the excellent psychological TV thriller DOCTOR FORSTER lifted it to brilliance, and as you'd expect, the role of the bewildered, grieving mother allows her to wear no makeup, her hair lank, grind cigarette butts into the floor and yell about her daughter’s murder. In short, everything you might want from the experience of seeing her live.
Similarly, Jason Watkins is one of our finest actors, I'd watch him in anything. His award-winning speciality is slightly creepy odd balls and as the psycho he gets to employ his whole repertoire of twitches, violent mood swings and terrifying flashes of anger.
Nina Sosanya plays the beautiful psychologist who, predictably, is battling with issues in her private life as she investigates the mind of the killer.
I'm not saying these actors aren’t at the top of their game and they work their socks off, but couldn't the producers have found them something more challenging to perform that was more fulfilling to watch?. I've a suspicion everyone may have convinced themselves that it explores key social issues, but as you’re more likely to encounter Elvis then a serial killer, I don't buy that.
Director Jonathan Munday has been given the task of making this all feel like an important West End play, so in between the short scenes he has unnecessary furniture slide on and off stage, amidst projections and film thriller music, to try to give everything a little gravitas. “A” for effort, but ultimately it ends up emphasising how light-weight this play is.
In fact “A” for effort all round. The actors give it their all, the creative team make good choices, but there simply isn’t anything in the play that you won’t find done better in TV shows like HAPPY VALLEY & MINDHUNTER, or the endless serial killer documentaries available to download 24/7.
Go for the superb acting, go for the valiant directing and design, go for cheap “psycho-porn” thrills and chills. Just don’t expect an important play.
Written as a novel in 1967 by Joan Lindsey, the story of Picnic At Hanging Rock has for decades caused discussion as to whether the story is based on fact or not. The book's publishers enticed readers with the statement, 'an intriguing mystery which may be interpreted as fact or fiction'.