REVIEW: THE WOLF OF POYAIS at GOLDEN GOOSE THEATRE 21-25 October 2025
“It touches on the themes of racism and colonialism adding humour to a serious subject.” ★★★
This play has the right venue for it. First, when you enter Golden Goose Theatre, you can feel a sense of community and warmth and the production team contributes to this, as they welcome the audience in a very polite way. There is a sense of unity and kindness which makes the audience feel comfortable.
When you come into the room where the play is going to be shown, the set is intimate, and you can tell that there will be history involved because of the old furniture and how the stage area is arranged. The disposition of the furniture and props make you feel involved in the play from the beginning and depending on where you sit , you can see the performance from different angles which makes it more interesting. The seating area is a nice horseshoe shape surrounding the stage.
The production team has done a good job taking care of all the aspects of the show from where you come until you leave at the end of the play.
The play is a monologue performed by one actor starring Joz Norris who is perfect for the role, and this is one of the biggest qualities of the show. He’s a great actor and comedian. He makes the audience laugh out loud and he brings every line to life, breaking the script from time to time to improvise some jokes which work perfectly well in the audience. He encourages them to participate throughout the play, especially in the first part and he tests the audience reactions and interacts with them to make everyone feel involved. He also uses different accents and is excellent at this.
There was a particular moment where a lady sneezed and he stopped his monologue to say bless you, making the audience laugh, and this is a quality that he brings, bringing protagonism to the audience and again making them feel part of the show.
This participation is good, given the fact that there is only one actor during the whole play.
Even though the performance was good and Jaz Norris can take this show by himself for the 90 minutes perfectly well, it would have been good to add more actors in some particular moments to make it more enjoyable and so it wouldn’t feel that long at times. A shorter script would have been ideal, as there are some unnecessary details that makes the play longer, and they could have developed the whole story in a shorter time. 60 or 75 minutes would have been perfect.
The first half was a little bit unclear in some parts to understand what exactly is going on, but the second half makes everything fall into place and it’s superior to the first half. It becomes clear what is happening. It touches on themes of racism and colonialism adding humour to a serious subject and talks about people’s ambitions to be successful until that takes over their behaviour, reactions and way of life. It also speaks about power.
The crew along with the actor worked hard. It’s easy to tell that they rehearsed for a long time and he did a really good job to learn these long lines. The props are well used, and the set has an ideal design that works well with the performance.
A good and interesting play to watch. It will make you laugh and have a great night out.
THE WOLF OF POYAIS
Starring Joz Norris
Written by Sam Went
Directed by Hector Laszio Cosmetatos
Produced by Elsie Watkinson
GOLDEN GOOSE THEATRE
21-25 October 2025
Tues - Sat | 7:00pm
Sat | 3:00pm
BLUEBAR PRODUCTIONS
https://www.goldengoosetheatre.co.uk/whatson/the-wolf-of-poyais-featuring-joz-norris?book=yes
Brief bio of reviewer:
Laura Mobilia is an Argentinian- Italian theatre maker, actor and writer based in London. She holds a master’s degree in Performing Arts from the National University of the Arts in Buenos Aires and has trained extensively in theatre and musical theatre. In 2010, she founded a production company in Argentina
