Writer: Tim Graves
Director: Jason Marc-Williams
Aged, dementing, far-right-wing homophobe Frank lives in a decrepit cottage called “Forget-Me-Not” somewhere in a pub-less village in deepest, darkest rural Norfolk. Someone reminisces about being “in the garden surrounded by fireflies,” suggesting that rural Norfolk has benefits, though, unfortunately, there is no phone signal or Uber service to enjoy.
“I’m a death’s door… here today and gone tomorrow… just waiting to pop my clogs”, Frank (Christopher Poke, grumpy, sandal-clad) tells us. The character is gifted with manically fluid dialogue comprised mostly of slang and Essex idiom, with an occasional borrowed song lyric thrown in. Slang and idiom tell us where a character is from, not who a character is. Even after two hours of Tim Graves’ dense, thematically ambitious tragi-comedy Walking Each Other Home, you may struggle to get a fix on exactly the kind of people Frank, or the other characters, are.
It is the hottest day of the year, and there is a sound of glass smashing somewhere off-stage. Frank sits on a sofa reading through old Christmas cards, wondering who they are from. “Is it my blow-away candle day?” he asks the gay Sikh live-in carer and former heroin addict Sandeep (Amrik Tumber gets the best of the evening’s sparse pathos). “Things are rarely as they seem, Frank”, says Sandeep ominously, though in fact, the elderly curmudgeon is getting a gift, of sorts, today. His son Michael (Edward Fisher on good form) is returning from several years spent living off-grid in Peru with his now ex-boyfriend, Carlos, and a variety of drug-addled shamans.
Michael has PTSD from years of childhood abuse (“buried beneath the rubble of the past is a boy wanting to be loved”, we hear), and has rushed rather too quickly through three ayahuasca ceremonies and six time zones to be with his dad. He has not really recovered from these tribulations, so, understandably, he is suffering flashbacks and is generally not in a great frame of mind. “Theresa May tweaking on Tina in a field of weed?”, Michael enquires when he encounters the man he calls “Daddy dearest”.
Frank, who thinks his house is full of strange, spiritual visitors (everyone here is seeing spirits of one sort or another), struggles to recall his son or the fact that he is gay. When he remembers, he spews out a cascade of homophobic slurs and says things like “your mother should have strangled you at birth”. Inevitably, father and son are headed for an almighty bust-up, but can Michael, who adores banana cake (the phallic reference presumably intentional), and Frank, who prefers lemon cake, ever see eye-to-eye?
Michael, seeking father-son reconciliation, takes Frank on a shamanic journey to rediscover their shared past. This involves spitting spirit water at him, thrashing him with a bunch of dried twigs, and blindfolding him. Frank, to the sound of Michael beating on a drum, imagines climbing the oak tree in the back garden. An emotional epiphany leads him to recognise that his past choice to chase a young Michael around the garden bearing a kitchen knife is not necessarily evidence of great parenting.
Most of the aforesaid takes place in the first half, where Sandeep serves as a kind of singing referee between the two warring men. That narrative strand mostly dries up midway through, so, rather out of the blue, Graves’ second half delivers an unlikely romance between the carer and the prodigal son. Michael thinks he was a Sikh in one of many past lives, so perhaps there is an inevitability to the boys’ union, which is sealed with a kiss that Frank interrupts by beating the lads with a bunch of roses.
Will the lads’ relationship thrive? En route to finding out, the boys quote lyrics of Madonna’s Like A Prayer at each other and debate, variously, the horror of Brexit, Nigel Farage, cultural appropriation, and the perils of spiritual narcissism. One wishes they would just get on with the bonking in an evening that feels a tad overlong.
“Is any of this… I don’t know… real?” Michael muses at one point. Good question, Michael. Walking Each Other Home certainly evokes an internal world that, just about, makes sense on its own terms. You may find yourself struggling to access this world (at least without a dose of ayahuasca), or to empathise with or understand its inhabitants.
But there is no doubt it is there. The characters are relentless talkers, determined to tell us everything they are thinking, and a fair few things on top of that. Director Jason Marc-Williams delivers solid performances and dials up the angsty conflict to maximum, but, boy, does one yearn for an occasional Pinteresque silence to balance the farce-adjacent nods to Joe Orton and, possibly, Caryl Churchill. One for the banana-cake lovers.
Runs until 16 May 2026
