Writer and Director: Rufaro Museva-Sauti
Rachel and Ben are in a long-term relationship. The mood is light and carefree, full of shared intimacies and jokes, especially at bedtime when all the important conversations happen. After eight years, they know each other well enough to fart freely and playfully tease each other. Like a pair of familiar bed socks, they are easy and relaxed in each other’s company and know each other inside out. Or do they?
In this funny, engaging duologue, Rachel, played by Nina Fidderman, is confident, self-contained and logical. She would love children. Ben, played by Gruff Williams, is needier with a habit of catastrophising and imagining the worst scenarios: neither intellectually nor emotionally Rachel’s equal, with a class difference to boot. When Ben reveals he’s been sitting on a metaphorical unexploded bomb, it shakes their relationship to the core. Can this couple survive?
Pillow Talk is about the dynamics of a relationship and how, when two individuals share their lives, they create a new lived structure. We later learn that the couple works together on building projects. Rachel is the visionary one with a sketch pad by her side, and Ben, the practical one, is a structural surveyor. The analogy is clear. A relationship also needs firm foundations, space, and light. Just like any secure home, it needs walls that can bear both pressure and weight.
Fidderman and Gruff give enjoyable, naturalistic and moving performances with good emotional range. Gruff does some great dad dancing and gives his best ‘devastated’ face while we witness Fidderman visibly tire and age as the relationship takes its course. In this intimate production, a double bed dominates, and we experience a voyeuristic frisson as secrets are revealed. Although more could be done with the lighting to make it more ‘bedroom’ and less ‘shop front,’ this is the kind of detail a director could deal with more forensically.
However, what’s lacking in technical finesse is made up for by the performances and the writing, which is mature, entertaining and well-paced, allowing the characters to gradually reveal themselves without exposition. The decision to run this straight for an hour without an interval is right, but in doing so, it exposes the moments when some beats are too slow or drawn out. Overall, the action unfolds effectively right up until the ambiguous final act, which audiences are left to interpret. Brought to you by Cwtch Productions, Pillow Talk spotlights some great new writing and acting talent. Definitely ones to watch.
Runs until 10 June 2026
