REVIEW: Something Clean by Selina Fillinger at The Lion and Unicorn Theatre 29 April – 3 May 2026
‘One thing is certain: Fillinger can certainly write a script’ ★★★
Doug kisses his wife’s knee to try and get close to her again. After months of sitting in bed with a tiny amount of duvet between them, Charlotte, who met her husband Doug at high school, feels a world apart from him. An impenetrable silence stands in for an imprisoned son, convicted of sexual assault at an American college. Tony Award–winning Selina Fillinger’s new play, Something Clean, investigates with uncompromising honesty and excruciating dialogue the changing sexual politics of the West — through parents who struggle to navigate how their son ended up in prison for rape.
Fillinger, born in Berkeley, California, and moving to Oregon as a child, attended an American college herself: Northwestern University. After painting in the finer details of a PR nightmare for the White House on Broadway at The Shubert Theatre in 2022, this play though taking on a more private subject, built around the lives of what was a previously a typical American family, packs an emotional punch to the gut and shows how easily these lives can be torn apart. A recipient of The Judith Barlow Prize and now a staff writer for The Morning Show, one thing continues to be certain for her stint at a London pub theatre: Fillinger can certainly write a script.
Direction by Alex Stroming picks up the pacing and slows the script down at the right moments, handling intimate scenes between the married couple with care. Joey (Felipe Chavez), the social care worker whom Charlotte (Katherine Oliver) meets while working, attempts to find some remedy for the crimes of her son. Joey is her perfect foil: a slicked-back, cocktail-drinking and endlessly kind contradiction to Charlotte’s inwardness, anxiety-ridden shudderings across the stage. As ever, when two opposite things meet, they come together and form a friendship. Though, even from the beginning of the performance, one wonders how long such a friendship can last, considering Charlotte’s circumstances.
A little more imagination in set and design throughout could have gone a long way. When the work embraces the whole of the space, like when Charlotte throws garbage around the stage in a fury, it brings what has otherwise been a secluded, centre-stage piece right up into the audience’s faces. Due applause must be given to every performer, though, who find sparks in each other to ignite within themselves and deliver considered, careful and clever characterisations of physically, or indeed emotionally, burnt-out individuals just trying to get by. Lawrence Carmichael, putting on two hats as husband and security guard at an American college in two scenes, puts his vocal chords to use with great success.
Something Clean asks something difficult of us through Charlotte. Are we right to use others to process our grief, especially when it will affect those we rely upon and, even worse, when we hide the largest secret of our past from them? It is great to see a production raising awareness for The Survivor’s Trust, an organisation supporting sexual abuse services, being didactic where it needs to be while also showing that assault has many victims, claiming everyone it touches.
Produced by T. Regina Theatre Co
CAST
Lawrence Carmichael
Felipe Chavez
Katherine Oliver
CREATIVES
Jessica Potts
ASST. DIRECTOR / STAGE MANAGER
Emily Nelson
COSTUME DESIGNER
Agathe Williamson
SET DESIGNER
Tutu Ching
MOVEMENT DIRECTOR
Phil Hamilton
LIGHTING DESIGNER
Meighread Dandeneau
Liz Kent
INTIMACY DIRECTOR
VOICE & DIALECT COACH / MARKETING ASST
