REVIEW: Walking Each Other Home by Timothy Graves at The Old Red Lion Playhouse 28 April – 16 May 2026
‘The script is a literary masterpiece, if overlong, with some careful editing it has more than great potential.’ ★★★
How many men does it take to heal the bond between a homophobic father and his gay son? For Timothy Graves, writer of Walking Each Other Home, the answer is three. His second play becomes as wonderful as it is queer, cross mixing cultures and sowing early seeds of a troubled childhood which building like a musical motif throughout the work, reach hypnotic but painful heights. Arriving at Islington’s Old Red Lion, accompanied by the humdrum of one of North London’s busiest boroughs, it spiritually grasps for, and occasionally achieves, a divine, exotic sublime, all in the quiet confined setting of a Norfolk cottage.
Drawing upon the four years that Graves spent in Ecuador between 2020 and 2024, including the moment he flew back to visit his dementia-stricken father during the hottest day on record in 2022, the play is a recreation of a man having to come out twice. Its script has obviously been curated by an author of novels, short stories and longer prose, with clever turns of incident, motifs built all the way up to a climax, alongside clever stage tricks which break the fourth wall, involving all of your senses. With his full body of work including Homo Jihad, Pharmakeia and blogs for the Huffington Post, Graves is not afraid to tackle the unknown, the marginal and how queer communities are founded outside of Western Culture. It is in these moments that his writing feels like a large breath of very fresh, very original, metaphorical fresh air.
Michael (Edward Fisher), supposedly standing in for the playwright, arrives tanned and kitted out from his recent nomadic sprawl across Peru to his father, Frank (Christopher Poke), who cannot even remember his name. Sandeep (Amrik Tumber), his father’s Sikh carer who flies across the stage whistling Punjabi hymns, is as caring as he is mysterious, holding his own wounds close to his chest until the second act. Away with the butterflies, or exploding with angry outbursts, the depictions of Frank’s dementia feel much too real and carefully considered: just trust me on this one.
Whilst Christopher Poke is on stage, with his spellbinding performance, both Fisher and Tumber step to his tune. The second act between Sandeep and Michael certainly has its merits but it feels like another play altogether. Ultimately, the play felt too long and didn’t need its interval as it breaks the magic, unsettles the audience out of the colourful Norfolk heat and means that the play struggles to lock into gear for the second act. The script is a literary masterpiece though and with some careful editing for time has more than great potential.
I hope to see more from Graves and his dramatic career. He is one to watch and not afraid to challenge himself, or his audience and he is writing something new, something alive and something that though I am much his younger, feels like it is speaking for the current generation.
A Seraphim Theatre Company Production
Walking Each Other Home by Timothy Graves, Directed by Jason Marc-Williams at The Old Red Lion Playhouse 28 April – 16 May 2026
Ticket Information
Performance Dates: Tuesday 28th April – Saturday 16th May 2026
Performance Times: 7.30pm (2.30pm)
Run Time: 90 mins (includes interval)
Tickets: £16 – £25
BOX OFFICE
FLASH SALE: Tickets £16 for 1st & 2nd May with Discount Code HOME16 (this weekend only)
CAST
Michael Maloney: Edward Fisher
Sandeep Singh: Amrik Tumber
Frank Maloney: Christopher Poke
Set Design: Jason Marc-Williams & Noah Cousins
Technician: Rachael Corrigan
Photography is by Lidia Crisafulli.
