FringeReview UK 2026

Vincent in Brixton

Orange Tree Theatre

Genre: Biographical Drama, Costume, Drama, Mainstream Theatre, Theatre

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre Richmond

Festival: FringeReview UK

Low Down

Review

“The secrets at the Loyers did him no good.” So wrote Vincent van Gogh’s mother in the summer of 1873, unwittingly inspiring one dramatist nearly 140 years later to assert the opposite. Nicholas Wright’s 2002 Vincent in Brixton originally premiered at the National Theatre, and is now revived at the Orange Tree directed by Georgia Green till April 18. Acclaimed as one of the very finest plays to have premiered at the NT at that time, its reinvention here retains intimacy, is further exposed in the OT’s round, and proves riveting over its two hours and fifteen minutes.

“Mr Vincent” (Jeroen Frank Kales) since he assets no-one can pronounce his surname, arrives at 87 Hackford Road and asks to lodge at the Loyers’. Schoolteacher Ursula (Niamh Cusack) finds the reason is the relaxed way her daughter Eugenie Loyer (Ayesha Ostler) has served tea in the street, and he’s fallen in love. Kales projects what he calls Dutch honesty a frankness with firecrackers attached. Kales nevertheless makes Vincent not only convincing but likeable.

Though disposed to reject him knowing the truth nevertheless Ursula sees something in this gawky, brash and devastatingly honest 20-year-old. Not least for his psychological insights. Cusack glows with the slow infolding of a woman who can inspire others; but is she denying herself, 15 years a widow and still wearing black? Ursula has already quickened one pupil, an orphan, now lodger: easy-going, perceptive Sam Plowman, the superbly natural Rawaed Asde, a study of a man uncannily in tune with himself. Cusack inflects the schoolmam with the liberality of a socialist

The dynamics of Ursula’s idealistic character are set up: she’s encouraged Sam to enter for an art scholarship. But his drawings excite initial jealous criticism: Vincent ‘s art-dealing family has posted him to London is an attempt to steady him for the family profession. Instead it makes him an art critic. Kales launches vehemence as readily as he manages to suggests Vincent’s radiant honesty: it’s clear in Wright’s reading too (helped by the famous letters) that he sees Vincent as neurodiverse. Though when we meet Anna, you begin to feel it might just be family. Wright has absorbed the shivering self-realisations of those letters and much biography: the result is a distillation of genius at a crucial embryonic phase. It’s a theme Wright would return to, if fictitiously, in Travelling Light.

Sam though offers a working-class critique on the virtues of anonymous art to challenge Vincent’s inherited bourgeois assumptions. Asde’s warm sympathetic Sam, with a similar assurance to Ostler for similar reasons, are edged with a realistic sense of what life can offer him. Ostler’s shrewd warmth imbues Eugenie with assurance: the authority of someone who’s already made their decisions and abides others’ hang-ups with calculated patience.

Soon Vincent’s attention shifts, as do his interests. Kales and Cusack sashay between liberal-minded ease and anxiously-skirted truths, then confront each other’s weaknesses. If Cusack, barely shrouding malignant sadness can respond to Kales’ piercing insistence, there might be release. Wright signposts alter features of Vincent’s life: Arles, for instance, picked from a French novel owned by Ursula’s deceased French husband. A later scene sees Vincent defend his use of birds.

As relationships all round soften and develop, Vincent initially sketches, having an effect on Sam. Then at the point he should have left, Vincent suggests his sister Anna van Gogh (Amber van der Brugge) move in. The scene between Kales and Cusack is electrifying. After the interval the outfall of inviting Anna becomes all too clear.

Van der Brugge’s appearance in the third act after the interval is like letting a chef’s blowtorch from Masterchef into a 19^th century kitchen. She cleans everywhere pointing up the Dutch culture of super-cleanliness learned from being perpetually near water. Anna is possessive and jealously fierce on behalf – as she sees it – of her brother. She carries not just the family’s branding of Vincent as directionless: but even an early relatively anodyne letter. She’s bent on rescue and flails about her, snooping and judging, even when declaring she’s not: particularly of Eugenie. Van der Brugge’s portrayal of a callow, judgmental, disruptive young woman is one of the stand-outs of the evening. Anna though can see one thing no-one else has noticed. She precipitates a decision, and the last act comes three years later.  Boots on the table doesn’t mean what it signified in Blood Brothers. Again a neat, witty reversal.

Jenny Ogilvie’s movement is like a pulse of becoming, as the five actors move round Charlotte Henery’s set with working kitchen, and the straining of egg-whites and tea, all in the round. And Henery’s exquisite period costumes: two each for Cusack and Ostler, and Kales, revealing their altered states. Though lighting’s steady enough, Lucía Sánchez Roldán renders some moments breathtaking: particularly the final one. A chiaroscuro out of Georges de La Tour; for good reason. Donato Wharton’s sound extends moments of the first of Schumann’s Oboe Romances into an existential backdrop.

Vincent in Brixton is both thoroughly convincing as what catalysed Vincent van Gogh: but it’s also a portrayal of catalysts: how his interactions all round have both a livening and sometimes catastrophic effect on those around him. Truth isn’t always a virtue, though it sometimes works here. And wrong-headedness is worse. It leaves you wondering what might have happened if Vincent had stayed, showing a courage that at this point he crucially lacks; and is an answer to Sam’s praise of the anonymous in art and those whose artistry is in quickening life. An outstanding revival, not least for the quiet blaze between Cusack and Kales, but with a revelatory supporting cast: Ostler, Asde and Van der Brugge.

Assistant Director Madi Mahoney, Voice & Dialect Coach Aundrea Fudge, Casting Consultant Naomi Downham, Costume Supervisor Emma Kylmälä, Wigs & Hair Supervisor Christina Semertzaki,

Costume Work Placement Ashleigh Ridding, DSM Devika Ramcharan, ASM Claire Hill, Madeleine Lawless, ASM Work Experience Placement Kate Braidwood, Lead Scenic Painter Charlotte Cross, Scenic Painter Mary Deakes, Work Experience Prop Maker Scarlett Stevens, Production Technician Intern Simon Calahan.

Production & Technical Director Phil Bell, CSM  Jade Gooch, Production Manager David Pritchard

 Production Technicians Andy Owen Cook (Senior), Priya Virdee.

Published March 21, 2026March 24, 2026 by Simon Jenner