REVIEW: THE FUTURE at Old Red Lion Playhouse 13 – 14 October 2026
“twists your stomach and leaves chills across your skin” ★★★★
Solomon Bowden’s THE FUTURE takes you on an uncomfortable journey towards the answer for the question: ‘how far can love go before it becomes something else?’ The story follows a man and a woman, who have clearly been together for some time, but one of them is looking for an end, and he’ll do or say anything to achieve that outcome.
The tumultuous relationship portrayed by Nigel Fairs and Jenny Adams is frightfully uncomfortable to witness but has you leaning in closer to find out why he is so desperate to end their relationship, and why she is so averse to leaving.
Fairs’ performance is electric as his desperation mounts, spitting out one vile declaration after another. You see the thinly veiled disdain for his significant other and nostalgia only offers so much comfort to him. There’s an almost overwhelming notion of suffocation within this bottomless pit the relationship has become, and no matter how many lies and insults he throws at her, it’s not enough for him to climb his way out.
Adams’ performance is a stark contrast to Fairs’ anger. She soaks up his brutal fabrications with an almost childlike glee, at times pleading for more. The relationship for her seems more akin to that of Stockholm Syndrome, blind to his want to escape, and blind to her own entrapment. She is no longer a prisoner. She’s exactly where she wants to be, but the two of them have very different ideas of what their future looks like. She’s obsessed with him. He’s obsessed with leaving her.
Their messed-up psychology calls to mind other deranged couples that have sprouted up time and time again. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. Fred and Rose West. Paul Bernado and Karla Homolka. Partnerships born of darkness and suffering, where the universe has somehow brought two deeply disturbed people together. You either, sense there is no life outside of the relationship for either; doomed to remain in this bizarre world the two have crafted together. No friends. No family. Just them.
The long-suffering couple swing like a pendulum between gleeful banter and sombre recounts of the events that have brought them to this moment in time. Adams delivers a fantastic monologue detailing her miserable childhood, passionate and bitter, while Fair sits beside her sobbing. His desperation has morphed into penitence as the true nature of their relationship to one another is revealed, and why they are so deeply tied together. Why he wants to leave, and why she has to stay.
The reveal twists your stomach and leaves chills across your skin, and suddenly all their admissions throughout the play come together. A shared, miserable past, and a fraught, uncertain future. A twisted facade of love that only the two of them will ever truly understand.
By the end of the play, they return to the exact same position they started, and you get the sense that this is not the first time this story has been told. And it certainly won’t be the last. Doomed to remain locked in this danse macabre for the rest of their lives, neither happy nor sad about the outcome. It just is.
There’s a saying that art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I think this play showcases that sentiment perfectly, and I am such a fan of shows that are not afraid to dabble in the taboo. Art is always a risk, but it is a risk worth taking.
Written & Directed by Solomon Bowden
Starring Nigel Fairs & Jenny Adams
Music by Corey Wood
Reviewer Laura King is an aspiring writer of novels and plays, with her first novel aiming to be finished this year. She studied Production Arts at Weston College before moving to London and finding work within the theatre industry with both ATG and DMT. She has previously found work as a life admin assistant to Olivier award winner Janie Dee, and has collaborated with her on such shows as Putting It Together and Janie Dee’s Beautiful World Cabaret
Instagram: @lauramarieking98
