Apex Predator – Hampstead Theatre

Perhaps it’s due to living in age of performative parenting and the anxiety it induces (coupled with the fact that, on average, women – regardless of their employment status, earnings, age, ethnic background or social class – currently perform more than double the hours of unpaid chores than their male partners) that there is a taste for tales of the fury of exhausted mothers. Women are mostly knackered and society doesn’t really care, so it’s enough to drive anyone crazy with frustration. Of course, where there is frustration, the theatrical reaction is usually either protest or comedy or both. Rachel Yoder’s novel Nightbitch, and Marielle Heller’s film adaptation of it, lean into the funny but weird side of relatable outrage and recent West End re-tellings of Euripides’ Medea remind us that motherhood lives just next door to the worst possible of disasters. Such stories illuminate that maternal sleep-deprived liminal space of tragedy and farce, where there is also a kind of trippy, otherworldly absurdity.

Sophie Melville as Mia and Laura Whitmore as Ana in Apex Predator

John Donnelly’s Apex Predator takes us on such a trip. We meet Mia (Sophie Melville), a harried young mother of two, in the most London of kitchen-sink settings with a newborn strapped to her as she confronts the daily injustices encountered in educating her older child, Alfie, in primary school. So far, so naturalistic and peppered with wit (the zingers fly as Mia describes her son’s classmates “like tech billionaires, y’know, super-bright but also fucking idiots”. We are in the familiar terrain of everything being simply impossible and her marriage to Joe (Bryan Dick) straining as he works clandestine surveillance of what might be conspiracy-cult fuelled murders. The inevitable confrontation with her son’s school teacher Ana (Laura Whitmore) about Alfie biting another 10-year-old (is it a “physical attack” or “self-defence”?) is a perfectly cringe-capturing moment of parental dread and despair… until the tone shifts entirely the play starts to explore just what would sustain us in this seemingly brutal and unsympathetic world?

Donnelly’s script looks at the extremity of wish fulfilment played out amongst the everyday beleaguerment of urban middle class women – first naturalistically and then with a gothic dimension that both amuses and surprises. Blanche McIntyre’s direction is pacey and adds to jeopardy as well as entertainment. Likewise, Tim Piper’s set, Jack Knowles’ lighting and Chris Shutt’s sound keep the show moving with high production values and a use of space that takes the drama to surprising extremes. Both Melville and Whitmore are excellent in their comic timing and delivery of ambiguously latent menace.

Thanks to its pace, humour and twists, Apex Predator keeps moving with a good balance of intrigue and intellectual challenge without trading its moments of pathos for excessive worthiness. However, as a new play, it may still need some final tuning to get the full benefit of the tone shifts within the story. For example, there is a vignette with a cartoonishly condescending doctor (Leander Deeny) which might be just a little too predictable in its depiction of post-partum medical indifference, despite Mia’s drolly observed quip that “getting a GP appointment is like getting Glastonbury tickets”. The accumulating tensions of Mia’s world feel in parts strung together rather than propulsive (for which Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal and its recent Old Vic revival is a masterclass in building such momentum).

Nonetheless, Apex Predator is provocative enough for a rewarding after-show discussion (without feeling like you’re being made to do your homework) but not so fluffy that you might as well be chatting about a column in the Mail on Sunday.

Review by Mary Beer

“They’re obsessed with climate change. See, we’re their food source and we’re heading towards extinction. It’s causing them a lot of anxiety…”

Mia is going out of her mind in a flat with a baby that won’t feed. Her son Alfie’s getting bullied at school; her husband Joe is working all hours for the police on a job he can’t talk about; the neighbour keeps blasting music at 2am; and another body has been found in the Thames.

As Mia desperately looks for something in her life she can control, Alfie’s teacher Ana proposes an unconventional route to empowerment – and suddenly the hunted becomes the hunter…

CAST
Victor – Leander Deeney
Joe – Bryan Dick
Mia – Sophie Melville
Ana – Laura Whitmore
Alfie – Callum Knowelden or Lorcan Reilly

ARTISTIC TEAM
Writer – John Donnelly
Director – Blanche McIntyre
Designer – Tom Piper
Lighting Designer – Jack Knowles
Sound Designer – Chris Shutt
Movement and Intimacy Director – Ingrid Mackinnon
Fight Director – Philip D’Orléans

APEX PREDATOR
Hampstead Theatre
22 March to 26 April 2025