{"id":815769,"date":"2026-03-10T03:23:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T03:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/815769\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T03:23:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T03:23:25","slug":"death-belles-the-hope-theatre-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/815769\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Belles \u2013 The Hope Theatre, London"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writer: Annie Power<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director: Penny Gkritzapi<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Suspenseful, spine-chilling and affecting, with impressive characterisation, this monologue anthology from award-winning screenwriter and playwright Annie Power details the struggles of four women caught in webs of deceit and trauma. As they grapple with their extremely challenging situations, each protagonist becomes imperilled as they reveal long-hidden secrets that trigger defensive and dangerous responses.<\/p>\n

In the first piece, All That Remains, Niamh O\u2019Donnell plays Poppy, about to embark on a fight for survival in the midst of a hurricane-strength storm lashing her remote Highlands location. Dressed in a homespun smock and using her soft Scottish accent to soothing effect, O\u2019Donnell transfixes as she traverses from the quiet intimacy of family life: little brother Caleb is bravely battling cancer; Mum and Dad are attempting to provide comforting, joshing normalcy to the extremities of physical tolerance imposed by the maelstrom and ensuing flood.<\/p>\n

Skilfully lit by lightning flashes and occasionally plunged into darkness, O\u2019Donnell uses the entire stage to evoke the hazards of her journey with expressive agility. \u201cStripped of everything familiar\u201d, her emotions are raw: she twists her fingers, clutches at her stomach \u2013 in the absence of anything else to cling on to \u2013 and cries real tears that course down her face. Having achieved salvation courtesy of local worthies and elders, and won the audience over, Poppy perhaps too blithely and suddenly moves into sinister folkloric territory. \u201cWe\u2019ve turned our backs on the old ways, and this is our punishment\u2026 Mother Nature reminds us of our disloyalty.\u201d The denouement is slightly predictable, but still stomach-churningly impactful and unsettling.<\/p>\n

The second study, Faulty, focuses on footy mad 16-year-old motormouth Lily, played by George Bird with convincing energy, innocence and lanky physicality. Apparently well-balanced and happy, Lily\u2019s life spirals into catastrophe after a chance comment at school provokes closer examination of her lop-sidedly cohesive family: she only gets on with her brother and Dad, while her mother openly expresses \u201cunmasked loathing\u201d towards her. This is the shortest of the monologues, and the least densely plotted, but it forces the audience to confront the almost unimaginable consequences of a savage societal occurrence that\u2019s rarely aired.<\/p>\n

In The Prophecy, Harriet Main is pale, quiet detective Rose, left distraught by a series of child murders in her precinct. The hand-wringing intensity of her obsession is palpable, and the audience is cleverly drawn into her hypotheses around the killer\u2019s identity, which appear logical and reasonable until revelations around Rose\u2019s own upbringing cast them into bewildering doubt. \u201cPoor Rose: no one will believe you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Main\u2019s experience as a roleplay actor for the police must have been invaluable as a source of inspiration for her highly credible performance as an unravelling detective forced to confront her own failings and tangled history. The ending here strays perhaps a little too far into the realms of fantasy and horror, but lacks nothing in pace and vivid drama.<\/p>\n

The final monologue, Threshold, sees the bright, beaming and engaging Finella Waddilove play Bella, a mother in a small Suffolk village who takes it upon herself to laud her fellow villagers, gathered at a parochial meeting, for their community spirit and congeniality: Geoff with his yoga classes, Linda with her watercolour tuition. It transpires that Bella\u2019s friendliness masks a frantic anger: no one seems prepared to step forward with evidence to explain the disappearance of her level-headed five-year-old daughter \u2013 \u201cShe knew to scream\u201d \u2013 after Bella lost sight of her happily dancing around the garden. \u201cEvery awful possibility thundered through my head like a freight train\u2026 all you gave me was stilted conversations and awkward looks\u2026you know who did it.\u201d Convincing as a good neighbour and stern adjudicator, Waddilove could display a little more deranged grief as a bereft parent, although perhaps the point is that Bella is now incapable of expressing any emotion whatsoever.<\/p>\n

All the pieces stress-test their protagonists beyond rationality and demonstrate the ease with which people devise interior narratives to justify their errant and appalling behaviours. The tense, heavy onstage atmospheres are accentuated by Constance Comparot\u2019s petal-strewn set, suggesting the complete devastation of tender flowers, while Amy Horsley\u2019s sound and lighting lend appropriately emotive colour. The noises emanating from Upper Street \u2013 \u00a0squad car sirens, bursts of music \u2013 are also usefully synchronous with the action.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the writing \u2013 taut and evocative throughout \u2013 is the way in which Annie Power has managed to craft four satisfying story arcs and endings within the confines of a 70-minute show.<\/p>\n

Coinciding with International Women\u2019s Day, this all-female production showcases the skills of four superb young actors, celebrates the astonishing depth and nuance of female insight and unflinchingly dwells on the darker aspects of the feminine psyche. Powerful and at times genuinely shocking, Death Belles delivers a bracing, unnerving and energising experience.<\/p>\n

Runs<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>until<\/strong> 9 March 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\t\tThe Reviews Hub Star Rating <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t80%<\/p>\n

\t\t\tSuspenseful, hard-hitting monologues<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writer: Annie Power Director: Penny Gkritzapi \u00a0Suspenseful, spine-chilling and affecting, with impressive characterisation, this monologue anthology from award-winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[235124,235125,748,235126,235127,393,235128,235129,4884,235130,50340,257,235131,235132,6080,129193,2764,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-815769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-amy-horsley","9":"tag-annie-power","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-constance-comparot","12":"tag-death-belles","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-finella-waddilove","15":"tag-george-bird","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-harriet-main","18":"tag-islington","19":"tag-london","20":"tag-niamh-odonnell","21":"tag-penny-gkritzapi","22":"tag-review","23":"tag-the-hope-theatre","24":"tag-theatre","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116202740438431051","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}