For a play first performed (and banned) 21 years ago, Philip Ridley’s dystopian fairytale, The Pitchfork Disney, has many disturbing parallels with modern society.
Agoraphobic twins Haley (Mariah Gale) and Presley (Chris New) live alone in their 1950s East London flat, venturing outside only for groceries and chocolate.
Addicted to cocoa as a substitute for love, the 28 year olds live as children, alone and unable to face the world.
The pair self-medicate, keeping their illegal drugs in a bottle which used to contain their childhood medicine and seek constant reassurance that they are a “good” girl and boy.
Their isolation is broken only when Cosmo Disney (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, star of E4’s Misfits) bursts into the house and ignites Presley’s repressed sexual desires, which leads only to violence.
The play is not for the faint hearted; we are told the story of Haley in a wasteland straddling Christ on the cross while rabid dogs snap at her feet, and of Presley cooking a pet snake and eating it. The crude but fantastical imagery may be hard to take, but it well represents the twins’ disturbed inner psyches.
The play is part of the “in-yer-face” movement, which is synonymous with violence, the grotesque, and the sexual. It conveys a world of fear and angst, of desolation and loneliness.
Ridley presents a post-apocalyptic world of madness and fantasy that is real enough to feel uncomfortable and visual enough to fully immerse the audience. The acting is both brilliant and powerful, in particular Chris New’s performance as Presley.
It is not an easy or light evening, but the play will stay with you long after you have left the Arcola and leave you longing to return. A must see.
