Theatre review - The Weatherman
Human
trafficking and slavery are a brutal reality in the UK. Eugene O’Hare attempts
to tackle these troubling subjects in his debut play.
The Weatherman showcases some terrific writing and Alice Hamilton’s atmospheric production crackles with energy and Pinteresque menace.
O Rourke (Alec Newman) and Beezer (Mark Hadfield), are middle-aged bachelors living together in a dingy London flat and stewing in past disappointments. Like a nightmarish version of the Likely Lads, they are two men who life has passed by.
O’ Hare has written superb monologues for his male characters. However, the poor Romanian child, twelve-year-old Mara (Niamh James), who their shady landlord, Dollar (David Schaal), deposits into their safekeeping, in return for six free months free rent and a weekly allowance, is left mute.
It swiftly becomes clear that Mara is suffering unimaginable distress as a sex slave. But she is effectively silenced by the men, who can’t speak her language, and by O’Hare who, inexplicabl…
The Weatherman showcases some terrific writing and Alice Hamilton’s atmospheric production crackles with energy and Pinteresque menace.
O Rourke (Alec Newman) and Beezer (Mark Hadfield), are middle-aged bachelors living together in a dingy London flat and stewing in past disappointments. Like a nightmarish version of the Likely Lads, they are two men who life has passed by.
O’ Hare has written superb monologues for his male characters. However, the poor Romanian child, twelve-year-old Mara (Niamh James), who their shady landlord, Dollar (David Schaal), deposits into their safekeeping, in return for six free months free rent and a weekly allowance, is left mute.
It swiftly becomes clear that Mara is suffering unimaginable distress as a sex slave. But she is effectively silenced by the men, who can’t speak her language, and by O’Hare who, inexplicabl…