REVIEW: THE NAG’S HEAD at Park Theatre 17 – 28 October 2023

'Beneath all the fun, The Nag’s Head has some wise things to say about grief and loyalty' ★★★★

This is a play that starts and ends with death. Three siblings, returning to the family pub from their father’s wake, immediately begin bickering. Why didn’t you visit when Dad was sick? Why don’t you know my girlfriend’s name? And “what kind of pub doesn’t have any beer, Jack”?

The Nag’s Head, their inheritance, is failing, much like their relationships to each other: “We don’t have a clue how to run a pub,” one says. “We didn’t even have a clue how to run a family,” the other replies. But beneath the sniping and resentment lies a past of childhood closeness, the kind that produced ridiculous nicknames and rituals and half-remembered elaborate dance routines. It’s this warmth that roots the story, drives the plot and keeps it from being a series of (very clever) piss-takes of small-town life, corporate greed and ghost stories as a genre.

The basic premise: Two brothers and a sister receive a Maybe-Maybe-Not-Cursed Painting, supposedly from their dead father, and have to decide how far they’ll go in monetising their pub’s newly haunted associations.

There’s an easy dynamic between these siblings Connor, Jack and Sarah, probably helped by the fact that two of the actors—Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson and Felix Grainger—are also responsible for the script. Cara Steele rounds out the group perfectly, and a lot of the fun lies in watching their very different energies bounce off each other. The additional roles each takes on—from local ghost racounteur to dim-witted reporter—are well handled and play to their individual strengths, and Fogarty-Graveson shoulders the brunt of the physical comedy in a series of memorable scenes that partner him with a very-much-unseen character.

Alice Chambers directs with clarity and humour, unafraid to lean into genre conventions with ominous soundscaping, dramatic spotlighting (design: Beri Yavuz) and a beautifully blocked scene set in the dark. The production as a whole strikes a pitch-perfect balance between the funny and the macabre, and pulls off its spiral from almost-naturalism to full-blown absurdist supernatural mania with flair.

The set-ups and payoffs are particularly satisfying. A throw-away joke about a customer from Act I becomes an elaborate haunting scene in Act II; Sarah’s questionable business friend morphs into a demonic presence; and it would be a completely unfair spoiler to reveal how Connor’s dating woes play into the siblings’ fates. Suffice it to say, the play more than earned the half laugh, half gasp that rang through the audience.

Beneath all the fun, The Nag’s Head has some wise things to say about grief and loyalty. It also knows exactly what season it’s playing in; if you're looking for an Autumn evening of grisly laughs, you can't go wrong here.

THE NAG’S HEAD at Park Theatre 17 – 28 October 2023

Box Office https://parktheatre.co.uk/whats-on/the-nags-head

CAST

CONNOR: Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson

JACK: Felix Grainger

SARAH: Cara Steele

CREATIVES

DIRECTOR: Alice Chambers

WRITTEN BY: Felix Grainger & Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson

LIGHTING DESIGNER: Beri Yavuz

PRODUCED BY Make It Beautiful Theatre Company in association with Park Theatre

Reviewed by Anna Clart