(seen at the afternoon performance on 17th September 2026)
Essex, the beating heart of England, is in revolution. Rebel Helen (Michelle Dockery) left husband Marcus (Jay Taylor) for foreign guy Paris.
It sparked a war that killed her best friend Cee’s (Laura Aikman) daughter and put Cee’s husband Mario (Gerard Monaco) on the front line with little brother Marcus.
Now the men return to Cee’s Essex palace of a home. All “girly” thick white carpet, photos, tochkas (designer Polly Sullivan has a witty golden apple on one shelf, compass on another) and the best bathroom ever.
They drag a bloodied, underwear clad Helen with them. Cee’s cleaner Dani (Maimuna Memon) helps out with reunion party nibbles as Ava Pickett’s clever lines fly.
Mario and Marcus order Helen not to leave ‘house arrest’ while they disappear to the club. Young solider Luke (Joshua-Alexander Williams) is set to guard her.
Rebel Helen is “having none of that,” and everything changes in a moment…
And this is just the first 20 minutes of a 105 minute piece written before, but staged after, Pickett’s sensational “1536.”
It offers the opportunity to examine what lead to the transfer sensation of the spring 2026 West End season. All the brilliance of an emerging new talent, and all the faults of a fledgeling writer exposed.
Razor-sharp observational humour is delivered by Messenger (Ethan Moorhouse), setting the scene, drawing us into a familiar world transposed from Ancient Greece.
Pickett’s dialogue flows like olive oil, with joyful tang. Pita bread characters are delightfully chewy, tensile strength and satisfying textures.
As with almost every first play, the fault lies in the dramatic engine arriving untuned.
Superfluous material abounds in act one, detail we do not require before the action really begins.
Unfortunately, if, like the monkey, you are unfamiliar with the myth Pickett is updating, then there is also material missing, back-history details it feels that we do.
Like the second act walls of the set, serious cracks in the foundations on which she builds. Without laying out the precise motivations for war, the reason it is all happening feels weirdly obscure. The monkey floundered trying to find the depth the writer probably intended to lead it towards.
Still, the performances are universally excellent, and director Lisa Sperling never slackens pace nor misses an opportunity to add atmosphere.
Aikman and Dockery are, as engaging wide-boy Messenger Moorhouse says, best of friends. The fissions of reunion when one has undergone an entire life-change while the other has simply followed convention are beautifully captured in a word, gesture, glance.
Maimuna Memon has a key role. Dani is not all she seems and Memon delights in the narrative flip. Her banter with Joshua-Alexander Williams’s Luke gives the pair a hint of sub-text we would love to explore further.
Ellie Turner in the small role of Chloe is chillingly amusing, Emma Monnickendam as estranged daughter Hermione likewise has a moment – though the “baby bump” needs revision, as any real midwife would explain to designer Sullivan.
Pickett has clearly volumes still to speak about why women are forced into their position in the world and how this must be recognised and changed.
This early work reads as a prologue before her sensational first chapter, and we hope eagerly for plenty more in the coming decades.
For the moment, this is a vital play for any keen theatregoer to add to their archive. Like Essex it is sprawling, a little messy and rough around the edges, but with a heart of gold vital to the continuation of our culture.
4 stars.