Brighton Year-Round 2026

Caterpillar

New Venture Theatre, Brighton

Genre: Contemporary, Costume, Dark Comedy, Drama, Theatre

Venue: New Venture Theatre Studio

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

“I expect the plummet, I brace, but no. The wind is now a breeze is now a whisper and I’ve stopped; suspended in the sky.  The light glistening off the water is blinding.” A woman steps off the world. Possibly in a good way. She’s not the only one flying, and we return to her flight. Where did she get the idea she could fly? Alison Carr’s 2018 play Caterpillar, which premiered at 503 Theatre after being shortlisted for its award, is now directed by Mark Lester at New Venture Theatre till June 27.

Caterpillar’s a three-hander that progressively darkens and mines bereavement, ideation, disabling illness (here a stroke), self-harm, abuse and depression. The title’s taken from a cake made for a child that undergoes a fate of its own. But butterflies are out. It’s also a play stuffed almost with symbolism: broken wings, unhatched pupae, incongruent dress and backstories that shift. Monologues, all spoken by one character are a highlight. The play promises on a high level, though like the jump, tends to splash when it might soar. But.

Claire (Angelina Sangster, returning after her NVT debut in Incident Room last year) has returned home to look after her mother Maeve (Amanda Harman, an NVT regular till 2023, now returning). Maeve runs a B&B at a seaside town; and it’s the height of the season with the annual Birdman competition: you jump off the pier and fly as far as possible with makeshift wings.

Yet the B&B’s closed because Maeve is recovering from a too-hasty return to work after her stroke. Her left arm’s paralysed, but she won’t sit still and is prone to rush off to the cinema. Claire – who’s readily left husband and child – has cancelled all bookings and is on watch as gatekeeper. Yet one customer says he was never reached and is hammering on the door.

This is Simon (Tom Bryant, debuting in NVT’s Arabian Nights in March). Simon’s competing, a promised he’s made to his girlfriend Emmy who’s died of pancreatic cancer at 20. He’s even got the yellow t-shirt. But competing, you need a fancy dress as well as a hand-made hang-glider: which Simon’s brought with a broken wing after a car accident. There’s overweight Spidermen, all sorts of superheroes getting capes wrapped round their faces, and elves flutter and splash.

After a testy, brittle set of exchanges a hostile Claire and defensive Simon find themselves drawn by the way their jagged parts fit. Sangster’s superb at finding the thew and accent of Claire, her arc of emotion and her vulnerability. Not all words were ideally clear, s deeply imbued is Sangster with Claire’s sense of displacement. Sangster simmers her sense of being snared, or tethered by one foot. Nevertheless by being here, she’s evading with a smokescreen.

Similarly Bryant beings out Simon’s slightly whiny mix of decision and repining. There’s levels of self-pity and sudden impulse, not all of which seems healthy. Yet, like Claire, Simon’s not telling all the reasons he’s actually there. The motive and the cue.

Simon’s certainly grieving and fulfilling a promise he made to Emmy. He relates stories of sharing ice-creams. Yet much later this narrative shifts. Alarmingly quickly the barreris of B&B guest dissolve as he and Claire embark on a repair job. Everything happens rapidly. THe shifts from intimacy and back to hostility – now on Simon’s part – don’t quite seem explained by some of Maeve’s reveals.

Claire’s been quite unpleasant too, though this modulates to someone unable to stop her own barbed quips. Certainly Claire’s reluctant to return to her family – and indeed returns abruptly after an incident.

Whilst Claire’s away Simon’s had time to meet the more approachable Maeve. It begin with Maeve’s welcoming contrast to Claire. Much later, this shifts: after Maeve returns at 3am and asks Simon to pay the taxi fare since she’s had her bag stolen and been knocked down: her injuries would have kept her in A&E had she not discharged herself. There’s more reveals, including – as with Claire – physical ones. Maeve immediately guesses what’s happened earlier and challenges Simon: “I see you boy” after yet another incident.

By now it’s difficult to see Simon as damaged, even obsessive, if not creepy. Bryant rightly tries to soften this to something that makes sense. Yet his reaction to Maeve’s reveals – intended to get him away from her life with Claire – seems overly judgemental and volte-face. Really? After what’s just happened, with the “glow” Maeve sees in him too?

Harman as Claire is quietly magnificent: warmth of greeting hides a steely selfishness. Harman modulates from warmth to fierce territorial fury, the opposite of what she presents to the B&B world of guests. Her different versions to both Simon then Claire of the reasons for her fall suggest the drastic assertions she’s made about Claire, also to Simon, are suggestively unstable. There’s a sense where Maeve is both clamouring for Claire to return to her family, and another where it suits her for Claire to have only herself with a shuttling-back to family; and nothing else.

Nevertheless, Simon’s reaction sets in motion a couple more scenes. And further reveals. Including recorded ones with Claire’s family voices: recorded by Jon Cottrell (husband Jamie) and Joanna-Joy Salter (son Callum).

Sabrina Giles’ living-room set is quite one of the most fully-realised I’ve seen here in years, complete with a small lobby and kitchen behind glass. Centrepiece is the sofa, but the t-shape is lovingly crafted with naturalist flair. Ewan Cassidy’s lighting mixes the right time of day. Chris Dent’s sound too is pin-point and discreet. Then there’s that hang-glider…

This is a richly freighted drama: all the issues around loss, abuse, displacement and ideation circle in two-hours-twenty with interval. Its dialogue is witty and often extremely funny – Carr hugely admires Victoria Wood – yet poetic and plangent. The two modes chase each other; yet aren’t yet quite fused. It might be said of Carr’s characters. Traits and motives occasionally jar or emerge abruptly, as if a string’s pulled. Not all the disagreeables evaporate, in Keats’ phrase. But that’s to judge from the highest standards, and Carr’s talent deserves no less.

If  Caterpillar is a play with its wings still partially furled, yet Sangster returns at the end to the finest moments, making a bid with balloons, in a riveting final monologue: “I slowly stretch myself out as long as I can go. I feel my spine crick and uncurl, my shoulders loosen…”

Production Manager Jeremy Crow

Stage Manager Gaby Bowring, ASMs Tess Baber, Abigail Hyde

Set Design Sabrina Giles

Set Team Leader Simon Glazier, Set Construction & Painting Simon Glazier, Gaby Bowring, Sabrina Giles, Andy Hind, Daryn Kleinhans, Elaine Larkin, Peter J Ranson, Joanna-Joy Salter, Chris Tew, Dan Tranter

Costume Design Mary Weaver, Margaret Parkes

Hair & Make-Up Emese Csoma, Shannon King, Julie Monkcom, Flea Traini-Cobb.

Lighting Designer Ewan Cassidy, Lighting Rigging Ewan Cassidy, Chris Dent, Bert gladstone, Chris Phipps

Lighting Operation Alex Epps. Ollie Wilson-King, Liam O’Sullivan (shadowing)

Sound Designer and Recording Chris Dent, Sound Operator Chris Dent, Sean McGrath, Jim Prior, Ollie Wilson-King, Liam O’Sullivan (shadowing)

Properties Gaby Bowring

Poster and Programme Designer Tamsin Mastoris

Publicity/Headshot Photography Strat Mastoris

Publicity& Social Media Elysa Hyde

Health and Safety Ian Black, Richard Lock.

Thanks to Katie Brownings, Emmaus Sussex and Liam for the sofa, Gladrags team, production and backstage team,  And FOH.

Published June 20, 2026June 20, 2026 by Simon Jenner