Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Sarah Maher, Emily Heyworth, Alun Parry.

If Paradise was half as nice…we would probably sleep in our beds not with worry but with comfort, not with concern but with joy and certainly not with the idea that at any given time in a world of seven billion souls were we being watched, every move undertaken scrutinised and studied, dissected just in case of any misappropriation of feelings or of possible conflict with the state. If paradise was half as nice then writer Brian Coyle would have no need to write a play that gripped the soul and gave it steely resolve to not allow the world to come down to this Pinter-esque dystopia.

Welcome To Paradise Road, where the curtains twitch without you realising, where your moves are recorded and where the only thing that’s free is a cup of tea and the chance to have to have your hair combed through by a lady who smiles too much for her own good; welcome to a world in which one bad word sees you taken away and where knowledge isn’t just power it is served with tea, gin and cake and is one of the of the most sublime shows to be staged at the Liverpool Small Cinema during the two week run of productions.

The play, directed by Emma Bird, not only captures the spirit of Pinter, the command of language, the idea of minimalist information and of brutal overtones hiding away in plain sight, it positively revels in them, the threat of the undisguised hatred that a soul can sink too when left to play with power is tangible enough to be felt dripping off the tongue and to be dissected with a scalpel.

The three actors take the spirit of private thought to a very high level and use it wisely to convey context and slyness and in Emily Heysworth the play was given that extra menace which audiences always hope for in such a view about society. The menace, calculated, delivered with a cheery disturbing smile, framed the idea that those who watch want you to are always pretending to have your best interests at heart, that like children, you cannot be trusted to make your own decisions.

With Sarah Maher perfectly cast as the watched Jane and Alun Parry giving a sterling performance as the mysterious but plumb voiced Edward, Welcome To Paradise Road is a play that is excellently delivered and unsettling enough to make you watch your step for a while as the theme of state alienation comes to bear.

Welcome to paradise, watch how you go.

Ian D. Hall