TG’s Vincent River: A Review

A sharp and deft interpretation of multimedia storyteller Philip Ridley’s script, Theatre Group’s Vincent River chronicles the meeting of an adolescent, who stumbled upon the aftermath of a violent homophobic crime in London’s East End, with the mother of the victim, moved out of home and wracked with grief.

The wordy one-act two-hander was served to the audience like an acrobatic waiter with a cloche-topped lobster: that is to say, impressive and delightfully surprising. Cast members Faye Thompson and Bill Riley were superb, with Cockney accents so good that you might forget one of them is Scottish. Ridley’s script - chock-full of surreal yet colloquial anecdotes - is handled by the pair with a frank, stark realism. They act with gravitas and sensitivity in equal measure, which deftly grapples with the grisly and culturally delicate subject matter at hand.

Davey, played by Riley, takes a turn from the innocent, wounded young boy to a sharp and knowing man, able to contort the narrative in front of the audience’s - and his scene partner’s - eyes. Simultaneously, Thompson’s Anita morphs from the bold leading figure who cheekily asks Davey if he’s at her flat for some “hanky-panky” into a shocked mother resigned to a sense of encumbering loss. Thompson and Riley dance this power tango whilst injecting the script with the exact right dose of humour and execute their respective roles with the perfect proportion of stumbling and swagger. Not only this: Thompson is dressed in one of the grooviest teal jumpers I’ve seen as of late.

Aside from the cast, the production for this play is something to be admired. The staging is stiflingly neat and sterile-white, bar an armchair and a few cardboard boxes. As the characters literally and figuratively rifle through memories, white flakes of packing material emerge from the boxes and are strewn across the stage. The audience will remember, however, a mention of the snow found choking the deceased Vincent: in an instant, the packing material becomes snow, the domestic turning apocalyptic. The snow then begins to chase the narrative, at an increasingly faster pace, both haunting and serene. It culminates in the shaking of snow from the stage ceiling, which falls at the feet of the characters as the denouement ensues. It matches a script that feels prophetic, as if an omniscient presence is sitting above, watching the scene. During these climactic moments - and as the play reaches the more grotesque parts of its storytelling - the lighting design plunges the stage into darkness, allowing no view of white curtains to placate the vivid horrors of the audience’s collective imagination.

Beneath a clean, simple, razor-sharp set is an undercurrent of disorder, where two budding actors aptly swim below the surface of social trauma. Vincent River was a triumph - an absolute gem of student theatre.

Vincent River played at the Alec Clegg Theatre, University of Leeds, from 30th October to 1st November 2025.

Words by Molly Clarke, she/her

Photography credit to Abby Swain, @abbyswainphotography

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