Drifting by Andrew Muir in collaboration with Ardent8 ensemble. Southwark Playhouse, the Little, 77 Newington Causeway, London until 22 November 2025, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Mark Douet.

Drifting by Andrew Muir in collaboration with Ardent8 ensemble. Southwark Playhouse, the Little, 77 Newington Causeway, London SE1 until 22 November 2025,

4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“Finely acted by promising young cast.”

Ardent Theatre Company was founded in 2014, and its aim is to end class inequality in the arts. They create an ensemble of actors from working class backgrounds who attend a series of practical workshops and then get a one week professional paid performance at a London theatre and a two-week tour. This play, Drifting, by Andrew Muir, one of the founders of Ardent, has a very talented cast who rise to the demands place upon them in quite dazzling fashion. They were recruited from Bournemouth and Poole College, Manchester Metropolitan University and De Montfort University, Leicester. Ardent's mission to reform and remove barriers that prevent writers, actors and audiences from low socio-economic backgrounds having access to high-quality theatre experiences is, however, not at issue. Nobody outside a handful of major cities ever had access to high-quality theatre experiences even in the age before the cinema and then television – although there was access to lots of amateur theatrical performances which were often of a standard as high as any repertory theatre or even professional touring company might stage. Muir and his fellow founder Mark Sands grew up in working class families on the South coast which is hardly the back of beyond anywhere. But that is another topic for discussion. This is a review of the play and the performers. We are in a rundown coastal town where a 26 year old young man, a university graduate but working stocking shelves in a supermarket, is dreaming of escaping but somehow never plucking up the courage to attempt it. He has a girlfriend, his parents seem to exercise control over him, his mother still cooks his breakfast and while his boss at the supermarket is a bit of a pain he somehow just cannot pluck up the energy to escape. When his girlfriend wins some money he fantasises that it is ten million pounds and all the things they could do. It is actually £10 but he is resistant to using that to get away from his run-down seaside town home and look for a job in London. It is very well performed, efficiently directed and by the end he does seem to have finally learned how to climb a ladder but whether that means he has escaped to a better life is anything but clear. The evening is most memorably for the players, hopefully some agents will see what they can do.

Cast

Yoby Batt – Father

Olivia McGrath – Stranger

Trae Walsh – the YoungMan

Olivia Israel – Arcade Assistant

Phoebe Woodbridge – Mother

Yarrow May Spillane – Girfriend

Amirah Abimbola – Work Colleague

Lewis Allen – Manager.

Everyone except Trae Walsh play other parts.

Creatives

Director – Andrew Muir

Set & Costume Designer – Bethan Wall

Lighting Design – Rachel E Cleary