REVIEW: The Departure by Tom Wells at The Lion & Unicorn Theatre 15 - 19 September 2026

“a classic two-hander” ★★★

There is nothing worse than waiting for a package except maybe the death of a parent. These realities, namely the relativism of emotion and lived-experience itself, appear at the heart of The Departure by Tom Wells at The Lion & Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town, this September.

As the audience enters the Lion & Unicorn black-box, Ross (Tom Wells) is already on-stage pacing his flat with a phone held to his ear. This direction from Jay Ford places the character “on hold” so that when the lights finally go down, the ambient “hold” music comes in and there is a visceral sense that Ross has been waiting an unreasonably long time for an update on his package.

Moments later, Lily (played by Harriet Chomley) returns from her mother’s funeral to disrupt any sense of understanding. The flat, it turns out, is actually hers. And Ross, despite being pantsless in her living room, is a stranger. He’s been crashing at a mutual friend’s invitation, and will be headed to Heathrow, he promises, just as soon as his passport delivery arrives.

The Departure is a classic two-hander. Two strangers with different worldviews, each facing a critical existential crossroad, find themselves trapped in a flat for 80-minutes of conversation that will forever change the course of their lives. The problem with this particular two-hander is that neither character ever sees past their own projection enough to believably change.

Wells’s performance is the play’s emotional center. His complete embodiment of Ross’s unique blend of assuredness and sensitivity grounds the play in an emotional authenticity. Chomley’s performance is also deeply honest and humorous as the neurotic, hard-on-herself-and-everyone-else grieving scientist. Unfortunately, the characters themselves - particularly Lily - are frustratingly and almost unbelievably myopic. Their narrow-minded insights into themselves can be confusing but their insights into each other toe the line of downright damaging.

The characters are seemingly unable to step outside themselves for a moment and cannot validate that the person in front of them has been shaped by entirely different formative experiences.

The Departure touches upon interesting themes and ideas including the parent-child relationship, the role of forgiveness, and the formation of identity. Wells is clearly interested in exploring how humans navigate painful emotions and the various merits of facing, sublimating, or repressing grief and trauma. There is a particularly interesting discourse about personal independence vs the need for human connection and a fascinating allegory of the periodic table of elements.

The script’s main issue is its editing. The Departure could clarify its own message and its own arc down to a 60-minute runtime. A tighter script would cut repetitive conversations that become grating on a loop. At present, the audience is forced to listen to the same excerpt from a drafted speech Lily has written no less than three times. Much like the recurrent disagreements, this repetition does not escalate, build, or add new information, it is simply redundant.

The Departure also suffers a lack of action. The concept of two strangers trapped in a flat waiting for the release of a delivery is clever, but opens the door for the pitfalls of stagnation that The Departure does not avoid. Without dynamicism, dramatic tension or conflict that genuinely escalates, there is no catharsis or climax.

Instead, the constant emotional up-and-downs become tedious, diminish the stakes, and fail to achieve potential impact.

The Departure at The Lion & Unicorn plays until September 19.

Box Office: https://www.thelionandunicorntheatre.com/whats-on.

WRITTEN BY: Tom Wells

DIRECTED BY: Jay Ford

OTHER CREATIVES: Harriet Chomley

RUNNING TIME: 85 Mins (No Interval)

Photography credit: Jay Ford