Dear Martin by Madeleine Brettingham. The Arcola theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, London E8 to 29 March 2025, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Charlie Flint Photography 6888

Dear Martin by Madeleine Brettingham. The Arcola theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, London E8 to 29 March 2025,

4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“Hilarious but scary.”

Dave's wife has been conducting an erotic correspondence with Martin, a psychopath serving a prison sentence in a maximum security hospital. Being not the brightest of men, although well meaning, Dave goes to visit Martin in the hope of a reconciliation with his wife by making a new friend and finding out why she has been writing to him,. Marting, while everything one would expect and certainly not to be trusted he, like Dave, is lonely and a strange relationship is formed mainly because Marting wants to convince his psychiatrist that he has a friend. Do that and she might get him a transfer to an open hospital and the world would once again be there for him to enjoy. The play is very funny, occasionally funny peculiar and at times perfectly clear that the last thing one should do is turn one's back on Martin. It benefits greatly from a first rate cast and Wiebke Green's direction of the encounters between Dave and Martin, between Martin and his psychiatrist and a couple of other patients Martin enjoys tormenting. Alex Mugnaioni's Martin is a cauldron of emotions forever threatening to boil over with lethal results but never quite doing it and he is matched by Ben Simpson as the gormless Dave, a man destined to be dumped. Edward Judge does two splendid interruptions as other patients, Ben and Tom, who interact with Martin. Amelia Donker as the psychiatrist and everyone else, including a disturbinglyu cheery visitor Dave encounters, displays her versatility to considerable effect.

Brettingham suggests her play is about mental health and redemption, but it is dubious that Martin can be redeemed given the mercurial creature Mugnaioni has conjured up – he is patently somone who takes other people over and manipulates them, but Dave in his own way is so blinkered that it isn't going to work. They may continue corresponding but Martin will stay where he is,

Dave will remain without a wife.

Cast

Alex Mugnaioni – Martin.

Ben Simpson – Dave.

Edward Judge – Ben, Tom.

Ameclia Donkor – Dina, CeeCee, Ava, Maria, Lucy, Security Guard.

Creatives

Director – Wiebke Green.

Set & Costume Designer – Kit Hinchcliffe.

Sound Designer – Julian Starr.

Lighting Designer – Lucia Sanchez Roldan.