Complicité – Jack Studio Theatre

This is the new play written and directed by Finn Lanchester. It is 65 minute whirlwind of humour, ideas and physicality.  Simon a primary school teacher has been handcuffed to a tree as part of an anti-oil climate demonstration and abandoned by his colleagues. At 3 am in the morning he is encountered by Benoit, a smoothly dressed French oil company executive slightly worse for drink.  Thus, the scene is set for a heated debate on the merits or otherwise of oil extraction and the threat it poses to our planet when out of blue an immediate existential threat manifests from a completely different source.

This is a very fast-paced piece performed to a very high standard by the two actors.  Alex Westwood made a very believable Simon: naïve, sexually repressed with views based more it would seem on emotion than rationality. He was well complemented by Victor Ciri whose credibility as the urbane and worldly Benoit was enhanced by the fact that he was clearly French.   

The set was emblematic of the aftermath of a demonstration, strewn with bottles, cups and other detritus.  The tree to which Simon was handcuffed was constructed of steel bars and diaphanous black material. A surrealist backdrop conjured up a major city.  Effective lighting helped created the right atmosphere for an encounter by two implacable opponents in the middle of the night facing an apocalypse.

The dialogue was very humorous, and I particularly like the fact that a coherent, if callous. argument for continued fossil fuel extraction was presented by Benoit.  There were a lot of interesting ideas and comments in the dialogue but in a production lasting only 65 minutes I found that the writer had crammed rather too much into the text so that the overall result was rather confused.

Complicité Is playing at the Jack Studio Theatre until 31st October. Tickets are available from  www.,brockleyjack.co.uk.

Reviewer: Paul Ackroyd

Reviewed: 19th October 2026

North West End UK Rating: