With his excellent hits The Knowledge and The Pass – plus his droll version of The Seagull for Headlong – playwright John Donnelly felt like a man on the cusp of the big time in the ’10s. He dropped off the radar theatrically for a little while (he has had various screen projects), but Apex Predator is certainlt a thoroughly intriguing comeback. Billed as ‘a sophisticated critique of the way we live now and a supernatural thriller’, the description is deliberately somewhat opaque, but it concens Mia, a stressed mum who turns to supernatural means to try and take control of her life. Again, we’re extrapolating here but it seems likely that she dabbles with vampirism and an undead who are concerned that their food source – aka humanity – is at risk of wiping itself out and depriving them of food.
Blanche McIntyre directs this clearly idiosyncratic play, which stars Sophie Melville as Mia, and Laura Whitmore – yes, off Love Island – as her son’s presumably vampiric school teacher Ana.
