Brighton Year-Round 2026

4000 Days

New Venture Theatre, Brighton

Genre: Comedic, Contemporary, Drama, LGBT Theatre, Theatre

Venue: New Venture Theatre Upstairs

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

“I’m grieving for the man I thought you were.” A mother complains to her son who’s come out of a three-week coma following a blood clot. Except he’s lost 11 years. On exactly the tenth anniversary of Peter Quilter’s January 2016 play 4000 Days, director Charly Sommers has wisely updated it: so Michael wakes up thinking it’s 2015, not 2005. He has no memory of anything since, including his partner Paul. It plays at New Venture Theatre’s Upstairs till January 24.

Apart from Chris Dent’s riveting videography moment at the climax of the first act in this two-hour-plus-interval work, no other alteration is needed. Sadly the original point that the world’s worsened since 2005 is even more true since 2015. Dent’s sound design too features music perfectly suited to 2016 or 2026.

“I’ve lost you twice” Michael’s mother Carol adds. Why twice? Michael (Rich Watkins) lies comatose in a hospital bed dominating Tim McQuillen Wright’s realistic set of a single ward, including a working window for Carol to tip cigarette ash through. Carol (Katie Brownings) hovers, but it’s Michael’s partner Paul (Mitch Jenkins) keeping night vigil, who Michael wakes to, thinking he’s a nurse.

It’s joyous news to Carol, who wants Paul out of her son’s life. Now Michael wants to paint, as he’s always done. But soon after meeting Paul, copywriter for soap adverts, Michael was apparently persuaded to give up painting to work in insurance – much to his mother’s disappointment. Much later, Paul too questions if he’s diminished the artistic, sparky Michael he met.  Early on, he switches off Mozart’s Requiem which Carol said Michael loves.

But 2015-memoried Michael – though desperate to regain his memories – has no intention of giving up painting: to him it’s fresh, even if his paints have gone. With new ones he begins creating a four-panelled mural – we see it in two parts: a superb abstract/surreal creation by McQuillen Wright in Michael’s ‘style’. One that will be painted over by the hospital authorities. Michael’s painting himself out of the corner his previous 11 years over-painted him into. His rolled-back self is more vibrant, more connected. Nevertheless, painting in a vacuum isn’t enough. Doctors have told Paul he can help jog Michael’s memories. Some might dislodge: it won’t be sudden.

4000 Days is about identity and loss. How much of us is compounded of memories, how these define, even subtract from us. Quilter’s play ingeniously poses the difficult question of how added memories might lessen as well as add. Here it’s as if Michael’s been offered a clean decision. Where he’s aware, if not experientially, of what he’d become; but not who he is now, in the space he has to decide before memories return. They may, but heavier with the weight of where they’ve been stored; to a person seeing them for the first time in a self-created space.

Brownings returning to the stage after absence as director, indeed artistic director of NVT, is magnificent. A pity she’s been away so long. Brownings’ hard-bitten, needy, sneaky, sharp-tongued Carol is a study in bitter love, of insecurity, with three husbands gone (divorced, died, abandoned, all disappointing her), with only Michael to cling to: ferociously.

It helps Carol’s and Michael’s characters that 4000 Days is studded with one-liners that fall perfectly to each. To Carol’s “There’s plenty more fish in the sea” Michael retorts “You’ve got to have the right fishing rod!” She thinks of blond Austrian Horst; the three things wrong with him being them, Michael rebuffs her.

Watkins gradually assembles Michael, at first weakly, even defiantly. Then more confidently, gradually regaining use of his limbs on sticks. He finally walks unaided. Watkins also adds layers of wit and confidence as Michael recaptures his old persona, as delicious as a wasp gorging apple juice. Indeed Michael often fears he’ll drown. One particularly fine scene, with Sabrina Giles’ and team’s lighting, features red footlighting as Michael collapses, rending newspapers of years he’s lost to close the first act. It’s riveting theatre.

Jenkins’ Paul is so beautifully understated it’s almost breathtaking. Jenkins never raises his voice but his emotional affect, the sheer pain he projects sometimes is overwhelming. Jenkins communicates a Paul capable of self-reflection and acts as selfless as his initial nudging of Michael might have been self-serving. Here, Paul’s redemptive qualities are emphasised, more fully believable than the Mozart flick-off of a controlling personality. Though Carol’s wasn’t talking to Paul at one point this earns her grudging respect. But what does Michael want?

If Michael regains his memory, what will that mean? And to whom would he return? Most of all might he continue with this new-old self? Quilter’s clear that our creativity can be undermined by people with their projections seeping into identity. But for all, there’s second chances. There aren’t easy answers here, but there is humour, especially if you’re cheated of consuming 17 boxes of Belgian truffles.

A consummate cast. And after an audience member was taken ill with an ambulance called, the professionalism with which the cast, team and NVT handled everything was rightly praised. The performers took up seamlessly from where they left off to a standing ovation. A must-see.

Assistant Director/Production Manager Alice Healey Stage Managers Ayshen Irfan, David Turton

ASMs/Hospital Workers Bert Gladstone, Mark Tournoff, Moon Berglind, Natasha Kitcher, Ollie Wilson King, Peter J Ranson, Sabrina Giles, Sean McGrath, Sofia Elliott, Trish Bayliss

Creative Consultant Deej Johnson, Set Team Leader Simon Glazier. Set Team Annie Sheppard, Astrid Fisher, Eli Acedo Pozo, Evie Dixon, George Walter, Peter J Ranson, Sean McGrath, Yago Machado, Chris Tew, Wiktoria Piatowska,

Properties Deej Johnson

Lighting Designer Sabrina Giles, Assistant Lighting Designer Bert Gladstone. Lighting Team Chris Dent, Fox Moody, Eli Acedo Pozo Lighting Ops Alex Epps, Bert Gladstone

Sound & Projection Designer/Operator Chris Dent

Video Editor Chris Dent

Music Editor Chris Cracknell

Poster Designers Jules Morris, Bert Gladstone

Costume Alice Healey, Cast

Poster Tamsin & Strat Mastoris, Programme Designer Tamsin Mastoris

Publicity Charly Sommers, Elysa Hyde

Photography Alice Healey (behind the scenes), Strat Mastoris,

Health and Safety Ian Black.

Thanks to Alison Wilcox from new Perspectives Theatre, Dee Johnson, Ben, Frieda Dougal and Bert Gladstone, Mark Wilson, Gerry, Geoff, Jude, Martin, Andy Sommers, Emma Sadek and Astrid Fisher, Anna Reed, Sue Sommers, Ladies of A SNACH, Alice Healey, Katie Brownings.

Published January 17, 2026January 17, 2026 by Simon Jenner