Lily Allen’s star casting worked wonders for the West End run of ghost story 2:22. But The Pillowman, Martin McDonagh’s 2003 play about child mutilation, state tyranny and freedom of expression (this production is partnered with PEN International), is a very different kind of gothic horror. Cerebral and slippery, it requires an accomplished actor to navigate its odd structure and changes of tone that slide between horror and humour, with punchlines tucked in between tales of children buried alive or attacked with drills.
Allen does not meet the challenge. The singer turned actor plays Katurian, a writer held prisoner in a police state reminiscent of a 1970s eastern bloc country, awaiting execution without trial, with her brother Michal (Matthew Tennyson, bringing eerie energy) arrested in the next room. She has written stories featuring eye-watering murders and mutilations that are being enacted by a copycat killer.
