Dinner With The Wolves- The King’s Arms, Salford

Writers and directors: Polly Hoban and Jake Butterworth

Plays like Macbeth and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? demonstrate that dinner parties in theatrical productions are more often sources of conflict and confrontation  than relaxation and enjoyment. Dinner With The Wolves, co-written and directed by Polly Hoban and Jake Butterworth, continues this tradition opening as a social satire/domestic drama before veering off into unexpected territory.

Dinner With The Wolves is set amongst the globe-trotting wealthy elite.  Emily Wolfe (Eloise Webb) organises a dinner party to welcome her husband Arthur (Zak Richards) back from his business trip to Japan. Guests include Emily’s sister Hannah (Claudia Pope), her boyfriend Rob (Joe Kelly) and old friend Fred (Jack Symonds). There are familial tensions between the sisters and Rob, being from a working class background, resents the louche behaviour of the over-entitled Fred.  There are also unexplained events – a decades old photograph reveals an absent friend no-one wants to talk about and, despite Arthur being in Japan, his mobile phone is found in the dining room and contains messages from his wife’s sister.

Co-writers and directors Polly Hoban and Jake Butterworth seem uncertain as to how to drip feed clues to the audience as to the nature of the play without giving away too much information. As a result act one has a tentative atmosphere, there is a vague sense of social class consciousness which is not pursued. The decadent lifestyle of the characters is made apparent in casual acceptance of recreational drug use but, although Rob comes from a different background, he never develops into a social class warrior.

All of the cast are allowed lengthy speeches to develop their characters. Act one is dominated by a whinging but very funny monologue from Jack Symonds’s smarmy Fred offering the cheerfully regressive opinion that it should be socially acceptable for men to specify the desirability of women who are able to cook and attempting to justify his behaviour in skipping out of charity work in Uganda . This leads to the impression the play is a social satire or a domestic drama based upon marital infidelity but that turns out to be misdirection.

Act one is preceded by an intense prologue featuring Arthur in a sexually-charged confrontation with Jessie (co-writer/director Jake Butterworth). In act two this plot tread is developed further and it finally becomes apparent Dinner With The Wolves is actually a revenge thriller.

Staging a sophisticated dinner party on a Fringe budget is not easy but a capable cast convince as swaggering members of the wealthy elite.  It is understandable the authors do not want to reveal too much too soon but their reluctance results in act one going beyond misdirection and starting to drift. The first act would have had greater suspense had it finished on a note of intrigue, such as the protagonist tipping their hand to let the audience know something sinister is due to happen in act two.

The second act is more atmospheric with the characters revelling in their past hedonistic behaviour. The motives of the protagonist are credible and accord with clues planted in act one. Although there is more tension in the second act it is limited by the occasional wordy speech but the strong performance of the cast ensures the anger of the protagonist holds audience attention.

Dinner With The Wolves is a confident production with a powerful cast. Some re-drafting of the script to make a stronger connection between the two acts and a more engaging conclusion to the first might be of benefit but the quality of the production is clear.

Reviewed on 13 May 2026