The Ticking – Drayton Arms Theatre, London

Writer: Adam Paul Brown

Director: Victoria Hansell

George Bernard Shaw famously said, “It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him”. A century on, some English people remain remarkably finely attuned to deducing origin and social class from accent and speech, occasionally provoking snobbish condescension in the process. Writer Adam Paul Brown’s thoughtful and enjoyable surreal comedy The Ticking expresses Shaw’s idea deftly, if a little loudly.

Lock four incorrigibly dim, straight, white, twenty-something English lads in a room, with a ticking bomb, and “no windows, no phone signal, no memories, and no exit”, and see what happens. Needless to say, class-based assumptions are drawn, barely suppressed ire emerges, and, as the show’s trigger warning declares, “scenes of mass stupidity” ensue. Think a laddish stag do at an escape room, mashed up with a hint of Lord Of The Flies.

Buffoonish hedge-fund, nepo-boy Hugo (Jack Cavendish in braying posh-speak mode) awakes, trouserless and hungover, after a night out with “Tarquin and the rugby lot”. Par for the course, one supposes. Asleep on the sofa is put-upon barista Mike (Aaron Barrow), whose primary purpose in life seems to be retching uncontrollably, making tea and coffee, and agreeing with everyone. Then there is rich-kid Jay (Adam Paul Brown), cosplaying at being a social campaigner, punk musician, and eco-activist. The final member of the quartet is Connor (TJ Dudley), a hi-vis clad working class driver for a mining company who, conveniently for the plot, “hates rich bastards”.

None of the lads can remember the night before, how they came to be locked in the same flat, or indeed whether they even know each other. Add to the mix a ticking suitcase and a revolver hidden in a drawer. “They might just be candles”, opines one as he considers the sticks of dynamite. “It could be a cake”, suggests another. “It’s a fucking bomb, you prat” retorts a third.

Explanations posited for the group’s dire situation include kidnapping by Greta Thunberg, ‘shroom-fuelled hallucinations, and unwanted presence on a Korean game show. Increasingly frantic efforts at defusing the explosive device are hindered by the boys’ determination to blame each other for their plight. Rea Mole makes a welcome appearance as a clipboard-holding Lucy towards the end of the piece, bringing a well-camouflaged revelation as to what on earth (or indeed in other realms) is going on.

Brown’s point in The Ticking is that if only the lads, and by extension, the rest of us, would focus on the enemy without rather than the enemy within, we would all be better off. The point is neatly made, though the cast’s determination to milk every comic opportunity at full throttle threatens to derail the message. One wishes director Victoria Hansell would dial down the performances a notch or two, particularly in a space as intimate as The Drayton Arms. Still, there is much to enjoy here, and Brown’s writing is assured.

Reviewed on 9 June 2025