Sometimes you see something so stunning it inspires you and wakes your spirit, reminding you why you love theatre. Lovett is exactly that: building and building like the waves mentioned throughout the play. It’s disarming at the start, drawing you in, making you lean in and watch her story unfolding. We know where it will end up – or some of us do, if you know the story of Sweeney Todd, but even if you don’t, this superb production takes you by the hand in a velvet glove which transforms slowly into an iron grip.
Opening on Eleanor sharpening a knife used for butchery, she explains to us what the different knives are and what they are used for in meticulous detail, she tells us she is “undoing God’s work”. She tells us how it’s no longer an animal but a body when the heart stops beating, and when it’s drained of blood, it becomes meat. This becomes such an ingenious metaphor for her life, which she recounts, and that led to this moment we meet her; moving deftly back and forth through moments of being a child with her mother, to finding a beached whale on the banks of the Thames, which is of course a historical fact. Through her embodied and precise performance and accompanied soundscaping we are transported to London of the 1800s, really experiencing how volatile and changeable life was for a woman of no independent means in that time.
The themes in the play keep returning, like the waves, building and building. She moves like a dancer: everything so detailed, so precise, not a movement wasted. You’re drawn in, her arm and hand movements are captivating, even when the subject matter is a little disturbing or disquieting, you can’t look away. It’s an absolute joy to watch such beautiful work, both in performance and writing: enthralling and mesmerising. It’s beautiful and brutal, funny and tragic, all at the same time.
She portrays a deeply passionate yet private woman who is incredibly intelligent. She keeps herself in check by telling herself – and us, to recalibrate. Whenever she is in danger of giving too much of herself, recalibrate. As deep as the ocean she tells us is calm with her gentleman of London husband, with whom she plays chess, yet one man has the power to unleash this passion, if only he was aware of it. She is funny and she knows it, pedantically correcting the grammar of her recurring acquaintance Irene. Never a victim, always slowly and steadily in charge of her own life, but with superb foreshadowing, one Achilles heel.
This is a masterclass in transitions between characters: the playing with her mother is superb, you see both people even with just one person on the stage. The changes are so clean, clear and crisp. The writing and the performance by Lucy Roslyn, with direction by Jamie Firth, are equally superb. The astute observation of when someone in power does something wrong they just get moved around by others in power, is as true now as it was then. This is quite simply a must see: brutal, honest, funny, tragic; staying with you and haunting you long after it’s ended, lingering like the smell of rust from the butcher’s shop. We are lucky to have such an incredible piece of five star worthy theatre in this year’s Brighton Fringe.
Wagner Hall, 3 May 2026
Lovett tour Lovett | BoonDog Theatre
