top of page

Theatre Review: Mindgame

This weekend, I started watching The Fall (mainly to get my Jamie Dornan fix!) about a serial killer on the loose, so when I got to Theatre Royal Windsor on Monday night to see Mindgame, I must admit I was already a little spooked.

From one of television's great writers, creator of Foyles War, the BBC’s New Blood, Alex Rider, the Sherlock Holmes novels House of Silk and Moriarty… and the James Bond novel Trigger Mortis), Anthony Horowitz's thriller Mindgame is about Easterman, a criminal who kills and then strikes over and over again...

The action kicks off in the office of Alex Farquhar at Fairfields Hospital. The set remains the same throughout. Kind of. You can spot the subtle changes, and begin to question if your eyes are deceiving you...

Famous crime writer Mark Styler (played by Andrew Ryan) has arrived at the asylum, delighted to have been given an interview with notorious serial killer Easterman. But Dr Farquhar stops him in his tracks, reluctant to let him see the patient, and equally reluctant to let him leave. Slowly, Styler – and the audience – discovers nothing can be trusted. Tricked into wearing a straitjacket, Styler becomes trapped in a nightmare.

The sound effects of distant screams, warning sirens and music of another era all add to the suspense.

Yet references of Happy Eater services, Ryvita and murder by M&S carrier bag somehow makes you laugh out loud, despite you sitting on the edge of your seat in suspense.

And ok, so there's no Jamie Dornan in it, but it wasn't lacking. The play only has three actors, all of whom were truly brilliant and convincing in their portrayal of the characters, and through a series of lies, manipulations and memories, dark secrets are revealed.

Is Farquhar (played by Michael Sherwin) really who he says he is? Where did the liver in the fridge come from? Why isn't the skeleton in the closet? What is Nurse Paisley (Sarah Wynne Kordas) trying to tell Styler in her secret note? And will anyone make it out of the place alive?

The play kept me guessing right up until the end. And once over, I had to sit there in my seat for a while, digesting what had just unfolded.

Go and see it if you dare. But prepare to be spooked...

Until 6th May. www.theatreroyalwindsor.co.uk


bottom of page