This minimalist one-man drama traps the audience within the four walls of a psychiatric hospital room and forces you to confront the inner workings of Delaney’s mind.
First of all, I want to give Ruben Sparks all the praise for diving headfirst into such an emotionally demanding role. The character of Delaney, who we follow throughout, opens up about his past while switching between a multitude of personalities, all demanding a high quality of physical vitality from Ruben. The switching between characters definitely pays off, as it not only provides great context for his life throughout the show, but you also just can’t help but fall into a trance-like state when watching. Ruben takes advantage of the small space in relation to his physical movements to create an almost animalistic and barbaric tone for the show, playing into the themes of isolation and captivity. Ruben is a very controlled performer, and every facial expression is calculated to bring across the raw emotion of the thoughts spiralling through his head. You’re thrown into multiple moments which highlight his fractured mental state and the hurt little boy inside of him trying to regain some semblance of hope and normalcy.
However, as entrancing as Ruben’s performance is, I’m not too sure the story was told concisely or understandably at times for me. It definitely gets the point across that Delaney has been mentally affected by all his past trauma, and there’s enough context of his past to understand how he got in a psychiatric ward, yet there’s a scattered approach to this exploration, leaving you less engrossed in the emotion and more so trying to keep up and piece together some sort of truth behind who Delaney is as a character. A moment or two where we pierce through Delaney’s pedantic reflection of his past and see him more so as a normal human trapped in this situation would have made me empathise with him a lot more than just watching several reenactments of past events intertwined with outlandish physical acting.
The lighting and sound also did a great job at portraying Delaney’s fractured mental state, as the changing colours and blackouts with handheld tea lights made for a great reflection of his wavering mind. Whilst providing a stellar lead performance, I would have preferred a deeper exploration of Delaney as a human rather than just being a mechanism to explain his past trauma.
Reviewer: Joe Lang
Reviewed: 19th August 2025
North West End UK Rating:
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