FringeReview UK 2025
The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return
Chalk Line Theatre
Genre: Contemporary, Fringe Theatre, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Short Plays, Theatre
Venue: Southwark Playhouse Little Studio, Borough
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Sam Edmunds’ The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return earned five-stars at Edinburgh Fringe last year, and arrives at Southwark Playhouse’s Little Theatre till September 27. Directed by Edmunds and Vikesh Godhwani it’s a high-energy coming-of-age with a twist.
It’s hard not to love this exuberant 75-minute romp through Luton. It’s both exuberant and serious, warm and yet with a chill undercurrent of deprivation.
Review
Trailing clouds of Luton, Sam Edmunds’ The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return earned five-stars at Edinburgh Fringe last year, and arrives at Southwark Playhouse’s Little Theatre till September 27. Directed by Edmunds and Vikesh Godhwani it’s a high-energy coming-of-age with a twist.
Luton in the late noughties is facing recession after downturn, and whist the crash and after isn’t explored directly, there’s sermons (occasionally preachy, I don’t care) on left-behind Britain, the nature of work and rent, and deprivation. It’s a world you only leave with the escape velocity of a rocket fuelled by 3As at A level. An epic up against a brick wall.
With three actors, it’s a little unbalanced and could almost be done with two. There’s good reasons though why this should work better with three. Olatunki Ayofe’s role has now been taken by Nathaniel Christian, and his Voice is front, centre and side-mirrors too, in a phenomenally-fuelled performance with writing that allows his character little repose or reflection. The moments when they occur are all the more heart-stopping. Christian is a talent to watch.
Elan Butler, the one 2024 returnee, plays mainly Voice’s friend Lewis and others, with a nuance and sideways look at each of his roles that render him the most nuanced and closely watchable of all. Whilst Leanne Henlon (taking from originator Anala Naima Aguinaga) takes the sketchy roles of Lakesha, Voice’s crush, and Jas, Lewis’ marginalised girlfriend. Henlon inhabits local thugs (Brooke Boy) and nearly everyone else with aplomb. The teen girls are (perhaps necessarily) underwritten and more balance should be found for the third actor.
Teen friendship, bonding, under-age drinking and sashaying in and out of parents’ lives and voices, and indeed conflicting desires for their sons. Lewis’ mother is hard-worked nurse he rarely sees and he becomes the polite surrogate son of Voice’s parents, stepfather Gary wants Voice to follow him into the motor trade. Gary declares in an aside of Voice’s mother, “This one’s for keeps”: it’s a semaphore of his values, and values of another generation. Leis is getting away though, and hopes to go to uni, whilst cajoling Voice to do the same. The moment Lewis get him to break through his own fears is exhilarating and Christian. And Butler’s – dance here is both thrilling and life-affirming, whilst being sublimely daft.
Encountering local hoods (Henlon wickedly voiced here) sets up a denouement that doesn’t quite and how you expect, and a literal double twist after the friends arrive at Lakesha’s birthday party (some fine acting with the rare complete trio here). The end might seem a little pay, but it’s affirmative and (spoiler?) there is a strong tie-in with the Ben Kinsella Trust.
Matteo Depares’ exuberant sound design melds with Edwards’ own lighting, which is just as boppy and explosive. Rob Miles’ set though is a masterclass: a brick wall with pull-outs ranging from a drinks cabinet to home-fridge and offie, it also sports two doors through which the actors apparate and disappear. As well as jump off from. Two plinths front this and the whole act of pull-out and assemblage is choreographed by movement director and co-ordinator Jess Tucker Boyd.
It’s hard not to love this exuberant 75-minute romp through Luton’s urban sprawl. It’s both exuberant and serious, warm and yet with a chill undercurrent of deprivation that fuels the political rage just offstage, somewhere behind the sound system. Highly recommended for all who want a better world than the one left us by politicians.
