TR(IA)L Review

White Bear Theatre – 14-18/4/2026

Learning that writer Mercy Brewer had imagined TR(IA)L – her debut script – while laid up with Covid-19 makes complete sense, and will come as little surprise to an audience once this tense and claustrophobic sci-fi drama beds itself in.

And ‘bedded in’ is where the action begins for ‘Subject X’ (Freya Popplewell), the apparently compliant guinea-pig for the testing of a new drug. X awakens to find herself lying prone on a basic mattress, isolated as she is in a barely-furnished room with little outside contact – bar an intrusive camera and speakers. The only voices she hears are those of a disembodied support worker, and that of apparently-affable ‘Supervisor Y’ (Macsen Brown), who thereafter presents himself as her only physical contact. He reassures her that all is going to plan. The serum, we learn, has been created by Y’s paymasters, ClearMind – a groundbreaking yet openly-suspicious organisation claiming to research into the relieving of symptoms of dementia and other forms of cognitive deterioration. X finds that she has zero recollection or appetite – and, in the room itself, has little with which to engage herself. Over the course of several days, X reveals few memories, bar a fondness for Radiohead’s appropriately-restless Jigsaw Falling into Place. She semi-enthusiastically consumes the few books allowed her while also teaching herself chess within the suffocating environment that understandably begins to drive her to distraction. This anger soon boils over (to the chagrin of Y) – however, defeating her supervisor in a game of chess has by-now revealed X’s innate intelligence and, subsequently, her growing ability to unravel what is really occurring here...

TR(IA)L presents itself not unlike a Play For Today for our times – its cold style, sparse environment and clipped language strangely reminiscent of those self-conscious productions of previous decades. Perhaps correspondingly, the production’s ‘revelation’ will be one that many observers will have predicted. This, however, is of no real detriment and certainly isn’t to suggest that T(RIA)L does not have insight: the narrative serves as a stern warning in these days of omnipresent artificial intelligence and carries this off with intelligence and aplomb. Perhaps as a production it leaves one wanting a little more, but the performances are brittle yet believable, the transfer of statuses excellently judged and, above all, well sustained.

TR(IA)L is no feel-good piece, but the clear glint in its eye as it conveys its sobering message makes for a very engaging hour indeed.

Stuck in the Basement Productions

Written by Mercy Brewer

Directed by Fiona Popplewell

Produced by Macsen Brown

Starring Macsen Brown and Freya Popplewell