"The Getaway". Review by Anuj Mishra

 The Getaway Review

At the heart of The Getaway is the worst couple you know. They hate each other, they hurt each other, but – somehow – they manage to channel that passionate hatred into frequent, intense, and loud love-making. 

The play begins with the offstage noise that characterises this type of sexual frenzy. Suddenly, it stops, and our never-meant-to-be couple, Linda (Marianna Shullani) and Alec (Arun Ghosh), hurry onstage to greet their houseguests, Linda’s childhood friend Mary (Gabriella Bedford) and Alec’s fellow rugby lad Jamie (Ezana Betru). It is quite apparent that the get-together is farcical, and both Mary and Jamie frequently wonder aloud at why they were invited. We quite soon understand that they are being set up together as part of Linda’s ongoing project to fix everyone else’s lives. 

As the controlling, unquellable Linda, Marianna Shullani thrived – shouting over everyone else, and stopping every so often to have a smoke. Her fiance, the insipid and facetious Alec, was played by Ghosh with a signature grin, though I couldn’t quite figure out if this was in character or not. The presence of Mary and Jamie is mostly tangential, though Bedford and Betru did a stellar job in acting and reacting like normal people in the face of the truly monstrous personalities of Linda and Alec. 

Clocking in at fifty minutes, The Getaway plays like a live-recording of an EastEnders episode. We get a short flavour of two truly awful people being awful to each other, while two quite normal people try and avoid the line of fire. Unlike EastEnders however, this domestic psychodrama is intensely hilarious. Well-written jokes (by Denisa Dobrovodová) cropped up exactly where they were least expected, and all the players did well to deliver them effectively. 

And then, out of nowhere, appears Mrs. Hutcheson (Louise Södergren). A student dressed up as a fun-loving and slightly lascivious retiree, who arrives with a “Yoo-hoo!”, bearing cupcakes and anecodotes from her kinky youth. Mrs. Hutcheson was the comedic heart of the play, despite the sheer absurdity of her character, which almost brought the play to the point of melodrama.

The Getaway has something of a identity crisis in terms of genre. That aside, the writing shows real technical strength, and – thanks to its comedy, and sometimes its absurdity – the play is absolutely entertaining.

The Getaway continues its run during the Burton Taylor late slot (9.30pm) until 1st March. Runtime of 50 minutes.


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