Orphans – King’s Arms Theatre

Over the last few years, Lisa and Colin Connor have quietly built something special in the small pub theatre above the King’s Arms on Bloom Street. As the area rapidly succumbs to gentrification all around it, this beacon of Salfordian working-class culture continues to produce exciting and interesting work, giving voice and opportunity for local creative stage talent to shine. This superb run of form continues with a blistering new production of ‘Orphans’, the 2009 piece by Dennis Kelly exploring urban violence and the moral quandaries that family obligations place us under.

Helen (Hollie-Jay Bowes) and Danny (Ryan Clayton) have managed to unload their five-year-old son Shane onto Danny’s mum for the evening and are relaxing into a well-deserved date night together, Helen has discovered she is pregnant, seemingly a cause for celebration and another step in this couple’s idyllic life journey. This blissful scene is blown up by the chaotic arrival of Helen’s brother Liam (John O’Neill), covered in blood and telling a tale of a young man he found on the street beaten and stabbed whom he tried to rescue. However, as the evening progresses, Liam’s story starts to fall apart, and the truth emerges with devastating consequences for all three protagonists.

Dennis Kelly has a deceptively simple style of writing, the naturalistic and conversational structure relaxes the audience into feeling they are peeking behind the curtains into a real domestic setting, and the building of place and character becomes hyper-realistic as the mundanity of daily life is explored. Each small revelation of nature is slowly added until the audience has a rounded sense of the motivation for each of their actions and reactions. This disconcerting style mirrors reality, where an audience’s sympathy and blame shift and when no motive is either truly altruistic or selfish as the narrative unfolds.

Danny is ostensibly the simplest character, a young married dad with a steady job, a mortgage and a beautiful wife. As the victim of a recent attack by local thugs, he has lost confidence and feels the need to assert his manhood. Both Helen and Liam were brought up in the care system, moved around a series of children’s homes and foster families with the concomitant effects on their self-esteem and engendering a fierce sense of loyalty to one another. However, as Helen clawed her way up the social ladder escaping her past, Liam spiralled into petty crime and association with bad company, unwittingly indoctrinated by internet violence and radical right-wing ideology through his friendship with the unseen Ian.

The gradual unravelling of Liam’s story to reveal the vicious racially motivated crime at the heart of the play is both shocking and realistic. The way in which Kelly subverts conventional morality so that Danny feels it is his moral obligation to torture an innocent man to protect his family, is fascinatingly pieced together as each step seems logical and understandable before he arrives at a horrific conclusion. Similarly, Helen’s protective nature towards her brother draws her in, Liam is manipulative and horrific in his control, but Kelly even finds some sympathy in this character, hinting at early sexual abuse and mental illness as a form of mitigation for his actions. This complex structuring of motivation and resultant action makes this a deeply layered piece that rewards concentration and caused heated discussion in the bar after the show.

Director Oliver Hurst utilises the tiny ‘in the round’ space to full effect, with the audience seating perched amongst the minimal set scattered around a table and sofa at the centre. The proximity of the audience to the actors gives immediacy to the performance for both actor and audience, and Hurst expertly choreographs the movement around the small area.

The performances are excellent with the triumvirate acting as a cohesive and believable family unit whilst each having their moment to shine. Bowes demonstrates the steely determination required of Helen in her battle through life to this point, fiercely loyal but gradually understanding the monster her brother is, her monologue describing the life she could have lived was heartbreaking. Clayton is a slow burn as Danny, dragged into a world he is not aware of, his descent to violence by increments is sickeningly realistic. At one point I was less than six inches from Clayton as he described the torture he had meted out, a visceral experience and a very close-up observation of a masterful performance. O’Neill is a tour-de-force, by turns comedic, vulnerable, aggressive and sly he expresses the full range of Liam’s character, gradually revealing the animal that lurks beneath the surface. His final scene talking to an unseen Shane was perfectly balanced between threat and innocence and sent shivers down my spine.

The announcement that The King’s Arms will be developing a Repertory Company “The King’s’ (featuring the actors from Red Brick, Rising Moon and Up ‘Ere) early next year, will mean that Manchester and Salford audiences can continue to be treated to such high-quality productions, the company providing a platform for local talent to emerge and flourish. I cannot wait to see what they have in store.

Verdict: Given the resurgence of racially motivated hate speech and crime in our society, this revival of ‘Orphans’ is a timely reminder of the consequences of such toxic rhetoric and attitudes. It is a superb production of a wonderful piece of writing, and I urge you to see it before it closes on 17th October.

Reviewer: Paul Wilcox

Reviewed: 9th October 2025

North West End UK Rating: