Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Thriller fails dramatically in mountain ascent
Escapees: Hasan Dixon and Katie Elin-Salt [Jonathan Keenan]

Black Mountain
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond-upon-Thames

BUILDING dramatic tension is not an easy skill for a playwright to master. Just a word or two, or even a pause, in the wrong place can puncture long spells of hard-earned unease.

In Brad Birch's latest play it is not so much his delicately crafted and intriguing wordplay that bursts the bubble but the deflating lack of substance behind it.

James Grieve's minimalist in-the-round production utilises just a ring of light and a collection of shrill sounds to illuminate the story of a murky love triangle.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
arcadia
Theatre Review / 11 February 2026
11 February 2026

MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class

MILES
Theatre Review / 10 February 2026
10 February 2026

MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about a two-handed theatrical homage to jazz’s most mercurial musician

spy who
Theatre Review / 7 January 2026
7 January 2026

PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying

 SISTERS IN HARMONY The Company of The ministry Of Lesbian Affairs [Pic Mark Senior]
Theatre review / 9 July 2025
9 July 2025

MAYER WAKEFIELD relishes a witty and uplifting rallying cry for unity, which highlights the erasure of queer women