The Guilty at Donmar Warehouse: Short, sharp and shocking

Russell Tovey in THE GUILTY - (Helen Murray)

Russell Tovey holds the stage and our rapt attention as a police dispatcher in this gripping, hour-long thriller from writer Chloe Moss and director Felix Barrett. Crop-haired and tightly wound, his character Joe efficiently dices incoming calls on the emergency line, talking down a teenager on a ketamine trip and giving short shrift to a man robbed by a young woman posing as a sex worker.

Then tearful, terrified Emily comes on the line telling Joe by hints and inferences that she’s been abducted by an armed partner and is in a van hurtling away from London. Her six-year-old daughter Abby and baby son Oliver are home alone. Tension ratchets up as events unfold in real time, Joe making some decisions that are inspired and some that definitely are not.