Creators: Elina Saleh Franck and Richard Vincent
Director: Richard Vincent
Improv theatre is by its nature unpredictable. Actors may start with a preconceived idea of their characters and how they relate to each other, but without a script to follow, those assumptions can often change on the spot.
Talking People’s five-night residency in the Bush Theatre’s Studio includes two nights of Sloth, revolving around a London family of four. Director Richard Vincent leads a question-and-answer session, but starts off with some elements of randomness: a draw of playing cards to determine how much mum Kim (Maggie Musgrove) and dad Deano (Ben Woodhall) love each other – quite a lot, it turns out this time round – while an audience member draws a card out of a bag to describe the couple’s biggest obstacle, which emerges to be boredom.
From there, the questions flesh out the family dynamic – Musgrove and Woodhall’s answers dictate not only the couple’s history, but the whole family’s, including Kim’s violent ex and the shadow he still casts over their lives, with Deano’s stepson Tristan (Brandon Grace) a constant reminder. As the elder sibling, Tristan also seems to get the brunt of the parents’ attention, leaving Allegra Marland’s quiet, studious Daisy sidelined.
Based on the questions from Vincent and audience members, the family dynamic begins to shift. Marland shows genuine unease as she hints at her brother’s increasingly worrying behaviour. Just as concerning, their parents tend to laugh off Tristan’s worst habits. Grace is particularly strong here as the sulky teen, liable to shrink into his hoodie any time a difficult question arises. While his quiet sulkiness doesn’t always make for the most audible of theatre (doubly annoying when Marland is similarly subdued), the growing sense of something being not quite right begins to take hold.
Lest things get too dark, Musgrove in particular injects humour throughout, especially with her obsession with Countdown, which seems to be on at all times of day or night in the family’s living room. While it’s a great device to keep the light and shade running throughout the piece, it also helps round out a character who is wont to avoid the confrontations that could help the family. Woodhall, meanwhile, takes a more serious line, bringing in a history of domestic abuse from his childhood that has affected his approach to his own anger issues.
After a first half of probing questions that help the four actors deepen their personas, the evening’s second act drops most of the interactivity and switches to scenes based on the evening’s character development. If it feels predestined that the evening will focus on Tristan’s reliance on voices from the manosphere – some of the YouTubers he follows are what his mum describes as “a bit Andrew Tate-y” – it is nonetheless compelling to see a young man descend while his parents feel powerless and unable to understand.
Of course, projects such as Netflix’s Adolescence have tackled the same issues to far larger audiences. There’s something chilling about watching it play out in a theatre with the characters just feet away. Whether improv theatre is the best vehicle for exploring such weighty matters, though, is less clear. It feels like the actors occasionally make choices because other media have already presented those same options, while a scripted production would clean up some of the rougher edges, inject more originality, and focus a little better on the meat of the story.
But that would be to deny the undoubted power of the unscripted form. For every risk and discarded plot line – Marland feels particularly underserved on the night under review – there are some moments that capture familial tensions and affections, often simultaneously, that might not survive in a piece written by a sole author. Improv theatre will not suit everyone’s taste, but Sloth shows it can still be affecting and a worthwhile endeavour.
Reviewed on 17 September 2026
