Brighton Year-Round 2025
Kill Local
New Venture Theatre, Brighton
Genre: American Theater, Contemporary, Dark Comedy, Drama, Feminist Theatre, Fringe Theatre, Theatre
Venue: New Venture Theatre Upstairs
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
Mat Smart’s Kill Local premiered in August 2017, just before the orange one declared “There are good people on both sides” after Charlottesville that October. Mayhem with a culture glitch between members of a killer family might be the only possible response. Directed by Elaine Larkin, Kill Local runs at the New Venture Theatre Upstairs till November 15.
A bloody must-see.
Review
“The president’s a killer.” It’s possible this is the first play influenced by the black comedy descending on the U.S. in Trump’s first presidency. Mat Smart’s Kill Local premiered in August 2017, just before the orange one declared: “There are good people on both sides” after Charlottesville that October. Mayhem with a culture glitch between members of a killer family might be the only possible response. Directed by Elaine Larkin, Kill Local runs at the New Venture Theatre Upstairs till November 15.
Todd (Simon Bigg), about to be executed by Sheila (Fox Moody) is frantically loquacious on the subject. Hands chained up above him he’s hoiked like a piece of jabbering meat; in one of the buildings he’s half-developed yet left empty, like the neighbourhood. Larkin and Simon Glazier’s set is a stark semi-built room with wet concrete useful to them. In Ewan Cassidy’s glaucous lighting, windows wrapped with opaque polythene won’t let in more than amber-diffused light.
It’s a virtuoso performance from Bigg, who impressed here two years ago in the Chekhov double-bill. The script – clearly invoking a deflection of sheer terror – is still too long, partly to justify the actor being there at all. It’s an understandable flaw though the dramatic arc suffers a little. No fault of Bigg – or the production – whose energy levels suggest iced Taurine running in his veins. Shout-out to voice coach Aaron Coomer ensuring accents are sharp and laconically soured-on throughout the play’s two hours.
Sheila wants to order lunch before shooting Todd. She’s on the phone to her Mom: it’s a homely little call. Moody making their debut here mixes weary jobsworth finality with a moral quirk alien – as we find – to Sheila’s mother. Turns out Todd is a thoroughly nasty asset-stripping developer. But, he pleads for one last message to a newly-discovered half-sister. There’s a number Sheila can call. Sheila’s weary of killing, but believes in vengeance – there’s a reason connected with her father. There’s a spectacular effect (the quartet cited below deserve plaudits for this, as does Moog Gravett’s fight direction). Sheila briefly makes that call.
That sets in train Todd’s snooping half-sister. A more immediate sister is short-sighted officey but complicit Abi (Elizabeth Kroon) who turns up. Mother Gloria (Jack Morris, also making her NVT debut) soon follows. She’s so furious she makes to execute Sheila. Gloria believes in nothing. You kill for whoever you’re contracted to. There was no reason for Sheila to go after her father’s killer. There’s business ethics. This delicious moral quandary is at the heart of a clever play.
Morris is exceptional as the raw-voiced Chicago-esque killer mom, growling acetylene across any doubts, terminally manipulative with a ruthless survival instinct more clear-sighted than either daughter. And Gloria’s bugged the place: she knows everything that happened. Kroon’s anxious Abi wishes to keep out of killing, which she’d be no good at. Kroon seizes on Abi’s techy 9-5 number-cruncher pitched into killing stats, alien to her natural culture. Abi wants to eat as they wait for this apparitional sibling. Hunched over her laptop, she tracks that half-sister. But isn’t she just as complicit, Sheila asks? Who shocks everyone. She wants out.
Just then Ami (Grace Vincent) arrives. She’s not a 30-year-old out-of-work kindergarten teacher; she’s 17. Vincent’s mix of innocence and techy tricks is a bit dazzling, but Ami never takes hints, keeps coming back. She’ll endanger herself. Abi reveals though she’s more like Sheila than either seem to realise at first. There’s revelations everywhere. A thrilling first-act climax is capped by a sizzling second half: tightly-scripted, more packed with incident than the first. There’s pauses but no drop in energy.
As reveals quicken and conversations deepen into switch and switch-about, there’s riveting discussions between Moody and Vincent on ethics and forgiveness (Morris led this earlier) that lay their quandaries bare. It’s a thrilling, slightly flawed play (a touch more editing would remedy this), but original and like so many NVT forays into U.S. theatre, unique to this venue. A bloody must-see.
Production Manager Pat Boxall Stage Manager Gaby Bowring ASMS Carol Croft, Trish Bayliss.
Set by Larkin and Simon Glazier
Lighting Design Ewan Cassidy, Lighting Rigging Ewan Cassidy, Strat Mastoris, Chris Dent. Lighting Operation Moon Berglind.
Sound Design David McNally, Sound Programming Ian Black, sound Operation Carrie Hynds, Leah Mooney.
Sound Operation Chris Dent, Arun S Varghese, Set Build Simon Glazier, Dan Tranter, Chris Tew
Accent Coach Aaron Coomer. Fight Director & Choreography Assistance Moog Gravett.
Set Build & Painting Simon Glazier George Walter. Dan Tranter, Chris Tew, Andy Hind, Tomasz Baranieckie
Properties Carrie Hynds, Elaine Larkin and Simon Glazier.
Special Effects Chris Dangerfield, Gaby Bowring, Carol Croft, Carrie Hynds
Costume Mary Weaver, Marion Dean
Poster Strat Mastoris and Tamsin Mastoris, Programme Tamsin Mastoris, Photography Strat Mastoris, Elysa Hyde, Headshots Elysa Hyde, Marketing, Publicity & Social Media Elysa Hyde, Health and Safety Ian Black.
Thanks to Wayne de Strete for Provision of firearms and training, Ganda Media, Strat Mastoris for lending a ‘hand’; Alan Lowe, Kate Brownings and Boc Office/FOH.
