FringeReview UK 2026
Two
Greenwich Theatre in association with Park Theatre
Genre: Comedic, Costume, Drama, Immersive, Short Plays, Theatre
Venue: Park Theatre 90, Finsbury Park
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
A bar-owning couple bicker. Spirits are still £2.05 and you can buy drinks with tokens but at 2026 not 1989 prices. After a sold-out revival at Greenwich Jim Cartwright’s Two directed by James Haddrell transfers to Park 90 till April 25.
As fine a revival as you’re likely to see in London or the South. It’s a classic that, like Road, is more political as it ages gracefully.
Review
A bar-owning couple bicker. Spirits are still £2.05 and you can buy drinks with tokens but at 2026 not 1989 prices. After a sold-out revival at Greenwich Jim Cartwright’s Two directed by James Haddrell transfers to Park 90 till April 25.
Kellie Shirley and Peter Caulfield play fourteen characters including the couple who sashay through the narrative with a sucker-punch at the end. Normally 90 minutes straight through this production inserts an interval: Two now runs for 105 minutes.
There’s an old lady taking a brief respite whilst caring for her bedridden husband. Or a poignant moment as a widower arrives just to feel the presence of his dead wife as Henry Slater’s atmospheric lights go down. A laddishly fast-talking man with a roving eye (he even gets a number written in his hand by an audience member) is hunted down by his girlfriend who wants a proposal; and Dirty Dancing delivers in an unexpected way. Another cringeworthy couple fixate as she riffs fantasies on powerful men “like an ox”, and her wibbly Roger Irrelevant husband turns up in a shrink of a face too ineffectual to even order a drink. Co-dependence and fantasy clash all the way home. Caulfield relishes these cringe roles then flicks into Fred’s bar-owner mode in a fling of costume-change outside. Shirley can rearrange hair and costume with such brevity and energy you become almost complacent knowing in ten seconds she can be someone else.
Cartwright manages the half-light of tenderness especially well. There’s a gentle old couple in the corner after the interval watching TV, reminiscing on happiness. It’s needed, as before this Lesley is terrified by her controlling abusive husband. If she goes to the toilet, she must be talking to other women, because she’s taken too long, even asked if it’s a number one or two. If Lesley looks out at the pub, in numbed fright, she’s then accused of eyeing men. It doesn’t end well. Near the end Shirley truly relishes the “other woman” drunk, taking her dignity off with her shoes, determined to confront her man and his wife in a fling of drunken despair and abandonment. It’s a bravura performance. And, final trigger: Caulfield as a nearly abandoned child elicits kindness from Shirley’s co-owner. It moves straight into the poignant finale.
The flying pub has somehow touched down at Park Theatre and a bit of the north come down in the East End but in fact the West. Previously nameless it’s now dubbed The Clock and Compass: pure London. Jana Lakatos’ immersive set is a working pub with terracotta walls riven with photographs (there’s a payoff there). Most seats are given over to 1980s mismatched chairs, round tables and stools. Indeed few people are placed in the vestiges of normal seating that looks designed for wallflowers or people-watching by the subversive: the pub used to be ideal for that. Tables are littered with full or empty glasses, and ashtrays: you’re likely to have your glass grabbed. A full cocktail might temptingly apparate before you. Throughout, you’re likely to be addressed (and can answer back); at other times the actors stare at the imaginary blank beyond.
The curious Manchester and London mix is faithful to the 1989 Northern original: but transposing it to London mostly works. Costumes reflect the north but as there’s a range of accents in Manchester to match London, the only curiosity is the Queen Vic effect. It doesn’t matter for the most part, and perhaps morphs into a universal pub experience.
Shirley and Caulfield are consummate and this is as fine a revival as you’re likely to see in London or the South. Though the impact is still greatest when true to its northern roots, Haddrell has convincingly argued for its universality. It’s a classic that, like Road, is more political as it ages gracefully. A time-capsule of community as pubs disappear, it wasn’t intended as such. But it does perform a political function revealing those days before mobiles, apps and drinking at home. The way the oddballs, screwballs and even families combined at the pub to pull pints and lovers, place bets and pool loneliness. Cartwright’s debut Road was political when it started out in 1986; itself just revived at Manchester’s Royal Exchange. Two, a quieter paean to community, is just getting started.
Stage Manager Seren Stewart, Technical Manager James Gulliver, Production Manager James Turner, PR & Marketing Manager Eleanor Hill, Press Partner CNC, Mia Squire, Media Partners Chewboy.
