You can’t fault playwright Degna Stone for ambition. In 45 minutes, The Lies covers the legacy of colonialism, the toppling of slaver statues and the murder of Stephen Lawrence. If you include the headlines on the tabloids scattered around Ali Pritchard’s set, you could throw in Harry and Meghan’s run-in with the paparazzi and Suella Braverman’s immigration policy.
And still that does not account for Stone’s central dilemma: a more domestic drama in which Leah, played earnestly by the playwright, frets about a deteriorating relationship with their teenage daughter. We never see the girl, but we know she is called Angel, a supernatural name in keeping with the make-believe games, half-truths and outright lies with which adults pacify children to protect them from a cruel world.
