The Shitheads Review: Primal Urges in a Playful Prehistoric Oddity
Love is expressed with a licked thumb run down a forehead in Jack Nicholls' dazzlingly unpredictable debut play, The Shitheads. This savage and sweet production, entirely strange in its execution, transports audiences back tens of thousands of years to a time when survival depended on good aim with a hand axe and squeamishness was a luxury no one could afford.
A Meeting of Opposing Perceptions
Early humans Clare, portrayed by Jacoba Williams with a slippery and wild energy, and Greg, played by Jonny Khan with puppyish excitability, meet during an elk hunt. The elk, a beautifully raggedy puppet designed by Finn Caldwell and captained by Scarlet Wilderink, appears absolutely alive until its inevitable demise. Never having encountered anyone like each other, Clare and Greg are in awe of their opposing views on time, the future, living, and dying—a connection worthy of that licked thumb gesture.
Directors David Byrne and Aneesha Srinivasan bring a thirst for blood and a delight in playful, prehistoric oddity to the stage. Interactions between characters are wide-eyed and primal, with a sense of wonder accompanying their blunt peculiarities. Through chatty, often simplified speech, Nicholls builds a world reliant on spears and seeds while encapsulating the grandness of dreaming, listening, and fighting for survival.
Family Myths and Dismantled Realities
Clare has grown up in a cave protecting her eager little sister Lisa, played with bounding energy by Annabel Smith, who would be flattened in seconds if left to hunt anything larger than a rabbit. Their father, portrayed by Peter Clements in a wonderfully menacing performance, is an ailing man who has built his daughters' worlds on myths of the "shithead" people outside. He claims they cannot talk, are stupid, and that eating them transfers their dreams. However, Greg's storytelling dismantles Clare's reality, and soon Danielle, Greg's partner played by Ami Tredrea with rugged wariness, climbs down into Clare's cave, further challenging these beliefs.
Artful Design and Untamed Imagination
Choosing wild imagination over historical accuracy, Anna Reid's design artfully merges red-dust cave paintings with modern elements like armchairs and lamps, and bones dangling as decoration. The story seems to escape the confines of this stony home, demanding grandeur from its gruesomeness. Discovered through the Royal Court's Open Submissions scheme, The Shitheads demonstrates the joy of greater risks being taken on contemporary stages. While the end could benefit from a trim, this feral story soars with untamed life, offering a unique theatrical experience.
At the Royal Court theatre in London, The Shitheads runs until 14 March, inviting audiences to explore themes of love, violence, and human connection in a prehistoric setting.
