"The complexity of the play could result in disaster, but Dunster’s impeccable directing means the audience can’t help but remain gripped throughout."
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Matthew Dunster’s production of The Pillowman, is a masterpiece of dark comedy. It may not always be an easy watch but it serves up a delicious take on what it means to be a writer, and to believe in your own abilities above all else
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“ ‘The Pillowman’ begins to feel like a case against a sanitised culture, one that fears ambiguity. She [Katurian] is arguing not just against a system that treats writers with suspicion, but one that doesn’t trust readers to understand the boundary between reality and imagination.”
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“Enjoyable is clearly the wrong word to use for a terrifying play about child murder. This is not an easy play to watch but there is much to think about here in this bold piece. We are invited to challenge our opinions on imagination, humanity, trauma, and story making itself. A wonderfully shocking experience, packed with food for thought, and not for the fainthearted.”
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Although Allen performs with confidence and clear dialect, the sense of emotion is not convincing enough to allow for any emotional connection. Pemberton brings humour to the play with great timing and Tupolski’s telling of a story which he wrote that he feels is better than any of Katurian’s is engaging, displaying his acting ability well. Paul Kaye playing Ariel has the best arc and evokes an interesting feeling of sudden sympathy for someone that appears so sadistic, with a keen use of torture methods to get the answers he needs. For a show based so heavily on imagination, this retelling lacks the emotional impact it could have achieved.
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"Allen... is compulsively watchable: drawn, intense, angular. But this show requires a juggling of emotional states she can’t quite muster... [regardless] McDonagh’s play remains brightly hilarious even at its darkest moments."
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“Martin McDonagh’s ‘The Pillowman’ is dark as ink, a fascinating defence of the power of the imagination and the freedom of the writer that shocks and unsettles with virtually every word...I’d never seen ‘The Pillowman’ before but had been assured by admirers of its quality. On this showing, it emerges as a clever, resilient piece of writing but less profound than perhaps it hopes to be.”
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“For all its rhetorical flourishes, ‘The Pillowman’ is a shallow exercise in Grand Guignol, laced with spurious meditations on the nature of art and creativity.”
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