FringeReview UK 2026

Orphans

Jermyn Street Theatre

Genre: Absurd Theatre, American Theater, Dark Comedy, Drama, Mainstream Theatre, Theatre

Venue: Jermyn Street Theatre

Festival: FringeReview UK

Low Down

Review

A young man alerted to his older brother’s return, hides the books he’s peering at, switches off Errol Flynn on TV, and waits to play the learned helplessness his violent brother controls him with; in the guise of protection. But when the protector hauls a drunken stranger back, the lives of three orphans change forever. Lyle Kessler’s 1983 Orphans Jermyn Street helmed by its former Carne Deputy Director Al Miller, continues till January 24.

Ever since its 1985 Steppenwolf Chicago production in 1985, this Tony-nominated classic has occasionally played in the UK, notably with Albert Finney. In Jermyn Street’s intimate space, its claustrophobia and escape tensions are as unexpected as they are intensified. Braided with absurdism it’s both specific and timeless, still-seeming and tiger-swift over its 115 minutes with interval. Nothing quite like this, as Miller points out, has played at Jermyn Street before.

Orphans is set in an old North Philadelphia row house “in the not too distant past”, which, since it references “Vietnam vets”, suggests late 1970s, or for many, the time it premiered. Petty criminal Treat (Chris Whalley) keeps younger brother Phillip (Fred Woodley Evans) like an axolotl, in suspended development. Feeds him on Hellman’s mayonnaise and tuna, ensures (as he thinks) he can’t read, or tie his shoelaces; and tells him he will die of an allergic reaction to the air if he steps outside.

It’s clear to the audience though Phillip is beginning to read, and fears his brother will find out. Treat’s trigger violence can turn, as Phillip knows. The two live in a squalor haunted by their dead mother, whose clothes Phillip refuses to part with; and one of whose red shoes he squirrels away. A lack of either parent or women is potent. The production aches with testosterone and damage.

Into this distressed-wall half-light, the thuggish Treat drags Harold (Forbes Masson), a drunk who apparently tried picking him up. Quickly binding him and searching his wallet, Treat thinks kidnapping might succeed.

Harold though, referencing Houdini (and anti-Semitism) quickly unbinds himself when Treat is out and recruits Phillip, then Treat himself: whose knife is no match for either Harold’s iron or lightning reflexes. Or his Mamet whip of a tongue. Harold, it’s clear, is the real criminal. Yet despite his pick-up starts, he’s grooming his “Dead End Kids” referencing 1930s films; for life, not sex. Though there’s homoerotic overtones, mainly in Phillip’s Flynn obsession, and a Fagin-like element. Harold’s role though is paternal, the only paternity Treat might accept or Phillip benefit from. And Harold’s lexical range isn’t only large, he’s full of quotes (if mistaking Burns for Shakespeare).

With seemingly huge if finite resources, he transforms the feral Treat with slicked hair and Pierre Cardin suit to look like a real wolf out of Wall Street; to manage small jobs, and test his trigger temper. Harold praises Treat’s violence, but he’s troubled by a lack of moderation.

Phillip’s more of a prospect. Phillip’s somewhat neuro-diverse memorising of certain things is now expanded into a wide-eyed universe that takes in astro-physics and a local map; as well stepping out into un-poisoned air. The revelation though is taste. After sampling Harold’s “international” cooking Phillip proclaims with Bouillabaisse: “I can speak French now.” Comic it might be, but it’s not just Phillip’s taste-buds that explode. Harold’s canny enabling has no ulterior motive – or use for Phillip – than free him. Whilst Treat repeatedly fails to pass the trigger-test and courts danger for all, Phillip’s blossoming in knowledge and confidence is a transformation. Harold though is prey to other pressures, and the denouement yet again wheels and twists, showing where vulnerability lies, perhaps beginnings.

Masson is sovereign as Harold, a twinkling bonhomie belying razor-like reactions where necessary, but also in snatches and hums, his paradoxes. Mason draws up teasing complexities when Harold turns experiences into fables.

Whalley, whose Olivier-winning performance in The Lieutenant of Inishmore marks him out as an actor of thrilling yet comical danger, seems wired into Treat’s ultimately fragile world. Whalley is superbly alarming, with gulphs of brooding, even doubt. Woodley Evans’ Phillip is a downy, defensive flurry of a young man, darting to hide or dissimulate. Harold’s coming steadies his physicality.

Sarah Baton’s bluish-and-eggshell distressed-wall set is exquisitely designed round studio theatre constraints, with two exits and a side window where winds of freedom beckon. Clothing takes on another dimension where two lives are repurposed. Costumes for Phillip, are more subtly done. He doesn’t begin as clad too childlike. Softer colours emerge, yellow loafers added without laces, which delight him. If grunge to Cardin surprisingly suits Treat, at least outwardly, they contrast with the perpetual mid-century brown of Harold. Timeless suspension is kept, as lit by Simeon Miller. There’s often a tenebrous feel to the set, where composer and sound designer Donato Wharton wafts 70s hits which fine down to the transistor radio’s space before being switched off.

Relating how a fellow boy news vendor died of pneumonia because he sold his last, chest-protecting Chicago Tribune, it’s tempting to see Harold’s seeking to redeem another pair of lost souls. Indeed a mystic dimension, wrapped in violence, suffuses Orphans. Especially as that newspaper becomes a ritual. The struggle with calming an acutey damaged character, prise away his arresting the development of his sibling is curiously angelic, and keen as a blade.  No wonder the propulsive energy of Kessler’s script, knotted with such complexity and switchbacks of violence has held the stage for over 40 years. You must see this.

Costume Supervisor Abigail Caywood, Fight Director Enric Ortuño, Accent and Dialect Coach Rebecca Clark Carey, Assistant Director Anna Lewis, Production Manager Lucy Mewis-McKerrow, Stage Manager Anjalec Kumar

Scenic Construction Liverpool Scenic Work, Production Technicians Edward Callow & Ted Waliker

Producer Jessie Anand, PR Kate Morley PR, Photography Charlie Flint

Published January 9, 2026 by Simon Jenner