Paul Webb’s second play, ‘Warsaw’, is set to premiere later this year under the auspices of Max Stafford-Clark’s Out of Joint. So now is a sensible time to revive his 1999 debut, a strange philosophical drama-cum-slick-black-comedy.
Set in the aftermath of Thomas Becket’s murder, it follows four nights in the lives of the four knights (geddit?) who killed the archbishop, as they hole up in Knaresborough Castle, hiding from a vengeful mob.
Webb’s text flows easiest when having a laugh: you’d have to be made of stone not to chuckle at David Sturzaker’s Traci as he launches into a lengthy anecdote about taking a shit into a frozen moat. But ‘Four Nights…’ aspires to be something deeper.
Why did these men kill Becket? The suggestion is that, stricken with existential ennui, they struck down Becket in the desperate hope that God would stop them. All very intriguing, but the play’s two sides scarcely mix, and it flits awkwardly between po-faced soul searching and jolly titting around.
Still, while the performances vary in quality, Seb Billings’s fringe revival is very solid, with a splendidly dingy set and lighting from Martin Thomas and Howard Hudson.