Parlour Song – Greenwich Theatre, London

Writer: Jez Butterworth

Director: James Haddrell

A forlorn husband and devoted demolition specialist struggles to handle the confines of his ever-increasingly static home life in this bland revival of Jez Butterworth’s dark comedy Parlour Song.

Butterworth’s script follows Ned (Naveed Khan), rapt in his demolition job while his marriage to Joy (Kellie Shirley) crumbles, seeking solace and support from friend and next door neighbour, Dale (Jeremy Edwards). The story takes a darker turn as Ned becomes convinced that items from his house are disappearing, and as the supposed thefts keep an increasingly bewildered Ned up at night, his insomnia leaves him with a loose grip on reality.

It is a production which struggles to hit the mark. It is hard to feel anything for Dale and Joy, especially as their neighbourly friendship turns into something darker and more intimate. Dale’s caricature characterisation feels like something out of a nineties lads’ mag, while his burgeoning adulterous relationship with Joy, which grows over games of Scrabble, has as much chemistry as a tile rack full of consonants. Ned is undoubtedly the most interesting of the three, and his complex character is delivered well by Khan. The cruelties done to the kind-hearted Ned provoke an awkward humour, and this is enhanced by Khan’s vulnerable delivery, where the audience both laughs with and at Ned, sparking thoughts about our own complicity in his loss of self.

The piece does find some success in its bleak, dark humour, as so often is the case in Butterworth’s work, driven largely by Khan’s terrific performance. There are some great moments of subtle pauses, anxious ‘umms’ and ‘errs’ and awkward taps on tables which Khan lands well. Scenes where Ned works out, or cooks a meal for Joy, desperate for her approval, draw well from Butterworth’s knack for absurd comedy, and this helps to capture the true heart of this production, where all three characters are moved to a position to confront uncomfortable truths.

Yet the script never gives us these moments of full-on confrontation. Perhaps that is the point, and with all three failing to confront their feelings of entrapment and ‘what might have been’, the play’s motif of demolition is a neat way of looking at the emotional destruction caused by such repressed feelings, yet in truth by the end this revival feels a little underwhelming, reaching a rushed and bleak conclusion.

Where this particular production does shine, however, is in its design, well-crafted by Emily Bestow. The decision to use a cross-section of a house as the backdrop is a clever touch, visually representing the intrusion the audience provides into Ned and Joy’s marriage. This is coupled with a neat use of projection, designed catchingly by Henry Slater and Hannah Schlenker, mapping the increasingly erratic journal entries made by Ned across the set in one of the play’s bleaker moments as what is happening to his psyche becomes clearer. The projections, and their chaos, contrast nicely with the immaculately white props and stage furniture which dominate the set, mirroring Ned’s corrupting and unsettling desire for perfection.

Parlour Song has its moments, and when the punchlines work, it is a funny and surreal piece supported successfully by Khan’s strong performance, which stands out as his psyche starts to crack. Visually, this is a striking and imaginative piece, but the production struggles to find its spark, and despite a few moments of well-crafted comedy, this piece about the collapse of a demolition man’s sense of self is anything but explosive.

Runs until 24 May 2025