REVIEW: CHANNEL SURFING AT THE END OF DAYS at Hen & Chickens Theatre 20 – 25 April 2026
“This play is funny. This play is good. Go see it.” ★★★★
CHANNEL SURFING AT THE END OF DAYS begins with a statement of intent. Arriving in the space, you find the cast in matching white shirts and trousers, facing the wall and chuntering to themselves like newly fired middle managers. They remain on stage for the duration, stepping forward in varying configurations to play a series of unknowingly doomed characters facing oblivion from a non-specific global threat.
This anthology show takes place as a series of vignettes, each with no lasting obedience to the other. Only an hour in length and without interval, a vague sense of unease is built and maintained under Callum Pardoe’s taut direction. The avowed aim of the piece is to show a range of characters variously silly, terrifying and sad. Overall, it maintains a pleasing balance of the three. Pardoe acknowledges inspiration from Joy Division and David Lynch, and, while nods to the latter are visible, CHANNEL SURFING is both original and firmly pegged to the pound, with peculiarly British lashings of awkwardness and gripe.
The spare, controlled staging perfectly suits the brief, and the effective minimalist lighting showcases the terror that can be wrought on the human mind by patio lanterns.
Thankfully, while faithful to the bleakness of the theme, this is a show that embraces comedy and comedy done well. Pardoe, who also wrote the play, manages to create something genuinely funny and even when wrapped around moments of severity and tenderness, the laughs never feel forced or crass. Indeed, the script fully embraces a jangly absurdist tradition while remaining deeply watchable.
Much of the praise for this goes down to the cast, who produce solid, giving, performances that are refreshingly low on ego and high on chemistry.
Perfectly inhabiting this spirit is Matt Williams, who from the beginning (in a couple’s awkward post movie night seminar through to a final brotherly séance) gives an utterly magnificent performance, full of Firthian awkward comic charm and real emotional depth. He is brilliantly nuanced, and later, in voiceover, genuinely terrifying.
Eleanor Cobb also delights, offering a kind of consistent real worldliness to her characters that helps us consider sometimes extreme scenarios as altogether possible. She appears in several of the most intriguing scenes and a brief but hilarious café exchange between her and castmate Joe Stanton was one of this critic’s favourites.
Stanton is wonderful, arriving onstage to showcase (with Williams) the best back-ting potentially ever witnessed. Offering the most frequent nod to the darker themes suggested by the premise, his presence throughout the play is unignorable and a virtuoso transition from tragically bereaved father to splendidly odd David Dickinson sceptic must be singled out.
Natasha Mula completes the quartet. In a convincing and forceful turn, her later scenes offer more space to expand, and she truly shines as an imminently disgraced public figure, in desperate search of validation.
The show is not perfect. Some scenes are richer than others, with a few leaning exposition-heavy and having a whiff of filler but that’s expected with work of this type and the constituently strong performances ensure there is never a chance to wilt.
Likewise, the unifying theme of imminent destruction is not particularly explored and at times, seems superfluous. As noted, Pardoe acknowledges Lynch but without a Laura Palmer underlay or any consistency of characters, the drive to impose one singular unifying concept doesn’t land. The characters, in absurd splendour, sell themselves.
That said, there is more than plenty to like, with humour, enjoyable meta interludes and unexpected tenderness in a short and effective piece that releases you into Islington before the watershed. This play is funny. This play is good. Go see it.
Channel Surfing At The End of Days
The Hen & Chickens Theatre
109 St Paul's Rd London N1 2NA
20th - 25th April 7.30pm £17.50
BOX OFFICE https://unrestrictedview.co.uk/events/channel-surfing-at-the-end-of-days/#prettyPhoto
Cast
Eleanor Cobb
Matt Williams
Natasha Mula
Joe Stanton
Creatives
Writer & Director: Callum Pardoe
Technical Design and Operation: Benedict Case
Photography: Matt Jones
