People, Places  & Things by Duncan Macmillan. Trafalgar Theatre, 14 Whitehall, London SW1 to 10 August  2024.

5✩✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“Denise Gough back as Emma, drug addict and trouble, in this outstanding play.”

Festooned with stars and plaudits awarded in London and on Broadway Duncan Macmillan’s play directed by  Jeremy Herrin and starring Denise Gough as drug addict actress Emma has returned for a summer season in the West End and is every bit as good now as it was when it was originally staged. Gough delivers a glittering performance as the infuriating  Emma who we first meet messing up a performance of The Seagull, and then turning up to  embark on one of those 12 step cures alike those run by Alcoholics Anonymous. She is difficult, deceitful, her parents have been driven to distraction trying to cope with her behaviour, and Gough is spell binding to watch. It is not an easy evening but it is also often very funny. Bunny Christie’s ingenuous and superb set – white tiled walls concealing doors and portals through which people and furniture emerge – is also back but now adapted to suit the confines of the Trafalgar stage. Some of the audience still sit back stage so that while we front of house watch Emma and the other addicts we can see people like ourselves beyond them. The cast have been drilled to perfection by Herrin. Sinead Cusack plays both the psychiatrist running the programme and Emma’s mother, one making clear to Emma that it is up to her to carry out the programme, the other more or less in despair and at the end of her tether over how her daughter has behaved. Whether we trust what Emma tells about her past when she meets the others in her group as being true is doubtful, but she did have a brother who died young and whose loss affected her childhood.  He is reincarnated in one of the young men on the course with whom she finds some connection. In the course of the first act Emma tries and fails the course. In act two she returns to try again. Will she succeed? Perhaps. Gough won an Olivier for her performance and time has only enriched it.  But People, Places and Things for all that is not a one woman show. The cast back her to the hilt. This is as good as it gets.

Cast

Denise Gough – Emma.

Sinead Cusack – Doctor, therapist, Mum.

Malachi Kirby – Mark.

Danny Kirrane – Foster.

Kevin McMonagle – Paul, Dad.

Holly Atkins – Charlotte.

Ryan Hutton – Shaun.

Ayq Owoyemi-Peters – Laura.

Dillon Scott-Lewis – T

Russell Anthony, Louise Templeton – Ensemble.

Creatives

Director – Jeremy Herrin.

Set Designer – Bunny Christie.

Costume Designer – Christina Cunningham.

Lighting Designer – James Farncombe.

Music – Matthew Herbert.

Sound Designer – Tom Gibbons.

Video/Projection Designer – Andrzej J. Goulding.

Movement – Polly Bennett.