Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast:  Mark Womack, Rene Zagger, Scot Williams, Samantha Womack.

Hope should never be denied to anyone, take it away and you deny that person the only thing they may have keeping them sane. Hope also can be secretive and a hard but forgiving mistress and to base a production around this idea takes the slight touch of genius and adds it to a script by Scot Williams which is utterly absorbing, playful but also captures the very essence of writing

The loneliness that everybody feels who locks themselves into this solitary confined world, the utter insanity of putting words down on paper in which there is every chance that no one will read is perfectly framed by  the cast and direction, all of which do justice to Mr. William’s well observed play.

The four members of the cast gave near perfect performances across the board, each one playing to type like a dream but in Rene Zagger’s portrayal as Guy, there was something that everybody in the Royal Court could hang onto, the everyman who is the uninvited guest to someone else’s dreams and desires. The thread that he hangs Norm the writer, Victor the stranger to the household and a very superb Samantha Womack as the eponymous Hope was at times incredible subtle and an absolute joy to witness.

As the play progresses, the little tells that each performer employs with such incredible dedication reveals more and more about the fractured nature of the story line. The moment where it all becomes clear, the writers mind becomes uncluttered and set apart from everything that has been holding him back. It is a sensational reveal and one that digs into the heart of every writer’s psyche, a powerful insight into the world of writing.

Hope may indeed spring eternal but Scot Williams play provides more than that, it shows a certainty that few people ever really get to glimpse. Hope is to be admired.

Ian D. Hall