A Butcher Of Distinction
Barons Court Theatre • 1 - 12 November 2022
Having been introduced to the dark, mercurial humour of Rob Hayes back in 2017 with his play Awkward Conversations With Animals I’ve F*cked, (yes… you read that correctly), I thought I would have been prepared for what was to come with the revival of A Butcher Of Distinction, originally staged at the King’s Head in 2011, (now currently playing at Barons Court Theatre until Nov 12).Truth be known, discovering that the play had been written by Hayes I was more determined than I might have otherwise been to see it… and it did not disappoint. What it did do however was surprise me… repeatedly, as the journey Hayes takes the audience on this time around is not so clearly signposted by the plays title, as had been the case with Awkward Conversations… This is an altogether more intriguing journey that finds Hayes slowly, and skilfully pealing back layer after layer of his story in an intriguing and increasingly suspenseful way, creating a gripping, shocking, funny and disturbing journey through territory that’s just about as dark as it can get. The end result sits somewhere between the grimmest of fairy tales and the darkest of Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected… on steroids. There’s a lot I could say about this play, but this is one of those occasions where the less that is known by the audience in advance, the greater its impact will undoubtedly be, so you’ll find no spoilers here.
What I can say is that the play starts with the introduction of two ill-at-ease brothers Hugo (Joseph Ryan-Hughes) and Hartley (Connor McCrory) who find themselves in the basement of a pub (quite literally in this case) which had been their fathers city ‘escape’ from the decidedly more remote, rural location of the family home, which it would seem the two brothers never actually had occasion to leave before. However, having now nervously made the trip to London to sort through their recently deceased fathers belongings, they begin to look for anything that might be of value having been left with nothing from the estate. Almost immediately there is an unsettling quality to the scale of the naivety Hugo and Hartley display due, it would seem, to their distinct lack of experience of the outside world. It’s early doors, but there is already a feeling that all is not quite what it seems. This feeling increases over time until it gets ramped up exponentially with the arrival of an intimidating stranger, Teddy (Ethan Reid), who claims to have known their father and to be owed a large sum of money by him. It’s a debt he wants paid, either in cash… or by other means.
This is not the first time a venue has greatly enhanced the overall experience of a play, and A Butcher Of Distinction could not have found a better location than Barons Court Theatre (my first visit), this itself being a dark, compact space, a pub cellar with low ceilings that easily lends itself to the increasingly claustrophobic atmosphere of the play. The low thrust stage has the ability to leave the audience feeling uncomfortably close to the action at times, but once again this only add’s to the overall impact of the play. Director Macadie Amoroso does an incredible job in navigating the dramatic shifts in tone as well as the action within this somewhat unconventional space, making sure that all three sides of the audience are given an equally engaging view, (no small feat in itself), whilst designer Laura Mugford adds just enough dressing to the bleak surroundings to indicate the somewhat squalid, not to mention ‘troubling’ lifestyle Hugo and Hartley’s father appears to have been living in secret. Add to this mix some solid character-inhabiting performances by all three actors and you’ve got 80mins of captivating theatre. With impeccable timing, McCrory, Ryan-Hughes and Reid faultlessly transition between Hayes laugh-out-loud humour and the discomfort of the audience-silencing revelations. Whilst humour and tragedy can sit uncomfortably close at times, A Butcher of Distinction is never anything other than a compelling watch.
★★★★★
NB - Audience members may find some of the themes triggering, and are advised to read the warning on the door before entering.
review: Simon J. Webb
photographs: James Lahaise