Shotgunned – Riverside Studios

Written and directed by Matt Anderson, Shotgunned gained some very good reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe and has now transferred to the Riverside Studios.  It is an engaging 60 minutes of theatre. Cleverly written and excellently performed, it tells the story of a young couple, Roz and Dylan, charting their relationship from their first meeting at a party, through its highs and lows.

The distinguishing feature of this production is that the story in not told linearly but in a series of short, some very short, vignettes in a seemingly almost random order. The fascination for the audience is piecing together from these fragments how the relationship has developed. This format presents particular challenges for the actors, who have to switch mood almost instantly during the short blackouts between the sometimes happy, sometimes tragic scenes. This was a test to which the two actors rose magnificently.

Lorna Panton played Roz, the more assured of the two characters, who works in a garden centre, is very keen on sex and has a great deal of self-confidence. Dylan, played by Fraser Alan Hogg, is an aspiring videogame actor who has much less in the way of interpersonal skills. Hogg demonstrated Ryan’s discomfort and uncertainty in the relationship brilliantly.

The play is performed on a basically bare stage, with only three boxes as set dressing and relatively few props. This was a good choice since it concentrated the audience’s attention fully on the story being told by the actors.  The actors wore the same clothes throughout, mainly because there was really no time to change in the very short gaps between the scenes, but this was also a good directorial choice since interrupting the action to change clothes would have ruined the flow of the piece.

There is nothing philosophical or particularly deep in the unveiling of this relationship, but it is a delightful piece of theatre, at times humorous, tragic, touching and awkward, but ultimately life affirming, which I can thoroughly recommend. 

Shotgunned is being performed at the Riverside Studios until 28th September. Tickets are available from riversidestudios.co.uk

Reviewer: Paul Ackroyd

Reviewed: 15th September 2025

North West End UK Rating: