THE Wasp

Hope Mill Theatre

Until Saturday

RARELY have I ever been so captivated by a play than while watching the Northern premiere of production The Wasp.

The Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, which is being staged at Manchester’s Hope Mill, is an 80 minute examination into the deepest and darkest recesses of our psyche, which reveals we are all not so different from one another when the chips are truly down.

There is no interval to this outstanding production but trust me the time flies as the tension builds.

Heather (Charlie Young) and Carla(Debbie Brannan) haven’t seen each other since school. Their lives have taken two very different paths.

Carla lives a hand-to-mouth existence and is heavily pregnant with her fifth child, while childless Heather has a high-flying career, a husband and a beautiful home.

Heather presents Carla with a bag full of cash which goes along with a proposition, which takes us on a much more sinister path that left the audience gasping at each painful revelation of past lives, which catch up with the present.

If its intrigue and excitement that you want, about who did what to whom, this has all of that and more. However, a word of advice, take absolutely nothing for granted.

Reference is made to spiders who eat their waspish ‘prey’ only for arachnids to become the real prey as they are eaten from the inside out. The parallels become equally apparent.

If you want a play, which symbolises all that theatre of the highest quality can offer, this one should not be missed

This production is the debut of ‘The Theatre Collective’; a new initiative aiming to create new opportunities and collaborations within Manchester’s thriving independent network.

Peter Devine