Werewolf Sighted In Port Talbot – Old Red Lion

Werewolf Sighted In Port Talbot is a darkly comedic horror play from playwright Andy Sellers. This astounding debut play premiered at GrimFest in 2025 and now returns to the Old Red Lion for a short run that you should go out of your way to get tickets for. The play follows couple Ffion and Billy on a camping trip in the Welsh countryside. They are there so that Billy can finally witness Ffion’s monthly transformation into a werewolf. With the stress of this pivotal moment building, and with dark secrets lurking beneath the surface, their relationship is tested.

Playwright Andy Sellers also plays Billy, alongside Lucy Havard as Ffion. They perfectly deliver the script’s naturalistic dialogue with believable nuance, such that it real feels like observing a snapshot of a real couple. The result is intimate and frighteningly real. The script initially doesn’t spell out the details of the couple and their respective backstories, encouraging the audience to pay close attention, and to extrapolate and theorise about what’s really going on. Despite most of the play consisting of two people hanging out and talking, director Adrian Greensmith manages to keep it feeling dynamic; he finds intentional ways to keep the staging lively without it feeling forced or overly-theatrical. The excellent script, performances, and direction ensure that Billy and Ffion feel like an authentic couple. The characters are flirtatious and affectionate enough that the audience can see the potential they have as a pair, and yet there is so much co-dependency, jealousy, secrecy, poor communication, and looming lycanthropy that watching them never feels safe or comfortable.

The play is by no means perfect, but the overall impact is so effective that it is easy to overlook the few flaws. The abrupt scene changes are sometimes jarring, and some feel like they come too soon, cutting off important and exciting moments. It is unclear how much time is passing between scenes, which somewhat lessens the sense of dread that the inevitable werewolf transformation should inspire. After so many scenes of Ffion writhing in pain and declaring she will change soon, it begins to feel repetitive and like the moment will never come. Later in the play, when a third character arrives in the form of extremely posh and seemingly clueless Kat, hilariously portrayed by Jenny Wall, the tone and plot shift hugely, and many of the mysteries set up in the first half are suddenly spelled out in their entirety. Initially this shift was jarring, but – like the horror-comedy film From Dusk Till Dawn – by the end it proved to be masterful, and builds to an immensely satisfying, entertaining, and darkly funny conclusion.

The play leaves the audience with much to mull over. The werewolf curse is rich in allegory, but Sellers’s script refuses to pin down exactly what it represents. The play encourages you to interpret it from a variety of angles; the curse could be a metaphor for addiction, sex, trauma, or menstruation. Outside of the more intellectual allegorical implications, the play provides exciting horror thrills, intriguing worldbuilding, and an utterly engaging relationship drama between two extremely well written and performed characters.

Werewolf Sighted In Port Talbot runs until February 28^th at the Old Red Lion, with tickets available at https://weareoldred.co.uk/

Reviewer: Charles Edward Pipe

Reviewed: 25th February 2026

North West End UK Rating: