Lie With Me

On the smell of an oily rag comes the Brave New World Theatre Company’s production of Lie With Me by Liz Hobart. They’ve been at it for over 2 years and the programme lists 23 people, including the three current actors, who have contributed to the script. With a setting that consists of thrown together bits and pieces – chairs, microphones, a projector, a table covered with clothes that becomes a body in a hospital – the Sound Design of Ben Hinchley is the hero here.

The three actors fit gamely in. Lyn Pierse is Janice throughout, wife to Len, a weatherman on Newcastle Television, mother to Sebastian, a lonely, needy child. All the other characters, male and female, are played by Julia Robertson and Nathalie Murray. The cast work very hard and, credit to them, emerge with flags flying, despite the play trawling deeper and deeper into the mire.

At about the halfway point you get the full message: young Sebastian has viciously murdered 17 boys, the outside world knows about it and he’s heading for a major beating in prison. Cue a short statement from Nietzsche on the nature of evil. This news doesn’t seem to shock Mum or Dad, though by this time she’s escaped his clutches. 

There are some good early scenes as Len battles his way on to Newcastle Television or attempts to play roadside cricket with his inert son while Mum watches anxiously from the home. But the horror of the ghastly deeds overwhelm. Did the parents not get any warnings beyond one school councillor? Were there no major ructions at home? Apparently not. And for the country’s biggest sexual predator. 

Still, I have nothing but praise for the hard-working cast and their director Warwick Doddrell.

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: David Hooley