The RSC has been sitting on these two absurdist parables of British insularity since 2020, when the pandemic halted its annual Mischief festival of new writing. The enforced hiatus hasn’t given them more depth or punch – each has ambition but is less mischievous than painfully larky.
Ivy Tiller: Vicar’s Daughter, Squirrel Killer (★★☆☆☆) by Bea Roberts gets off to a sharp start. Ivy is a single-minded woman on a mission, dedicated to making her Devon village a haven for endangered red squirrels. She shows a stomach-churning power point about squirrel pox and weeping ulcers to, it turns out, a primary school class. As Ivy, Jenny Rainsford stuffs her cheeks full of the character’s quiddities: her military zeal and unexamined grief, her alarming tableau of a stuffed grey squirrel terrorising Sylvanian family figures (“It’s very hard to learn taxidermy off of YouTube”).
