The Day of the Triffids

The Day of the Triffids is a bold, awe inspiring work that immerses the audience right into the centre of the nail biting horror.

Humanity has fallen into chaos – left blind and under segue, humans have little hope but to plunge into a dystopian survival mode as blood thirsty plants begin to reclaim the world around them.

J. James-Moody does a masterful job in bringing this work to the stage. Each element of the story is given theatrical weight and significance with an amazing amount of detail invested not only in the dramaturgy of the work but how the bells and whistles of theatre can be utilized to capture the essence of the narrative.

What elevates this work to a breathtakingly high standard of storytelling is James-Moody’s relentless ambition to use every inch of not just the set, sound and lighting but the very theatre itself, transforming the hollow black box into an unnerving hellscape ruled by carnivorous plants.

The ensemble of James Collins, Claudia Elbourne, Nathan Farrow, Tony Llewellyn-Jones, Kate Mannix, Max Ryan, Umai Shantharajah and Natasha Todd all work in perfect harmony to shape and unravel the world that their characters exist in.

There is not a moment when the performers are not present, locked in and completely committed to the theatrical demands that this production calls for. Each actor delivers a perfectly crafted performance that only adds to the heights that this work reaches.

Holly Nesbitt’s lighting design and Aubtin Namdar’s sound design form a unison that is unmatched, with every element not only enhancing the other but working so seamlessly it is hard to define where one ends and the other begins.

This production is a bold and unexpected offering of the New Theatre and a very welcomed reprieve the totally sanitised and bland theatrical landscape audiences are currently subjected to. Not every moment lands and not every idea necessarily works however the absolute imagination and artistry cannot be denied nor disrespected, with the work doing the heavy creative lifting many “main stage” companies should be doing.