Review: Radiant Vermin – The Tron Theatre, Glasgow

By Dominic Corr on June 30, 2024

Written by Philip Ridley

Directed by Johnny McKnight

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Just how far would you go to get onto the property ladder? Especially in today's climate, when homeownership prospects are becoming an even more distant hope.

Would you move to a new town, perhaps enter a blind bid and hope for the best? Maybe you'd settle for a one-bed flat next to an open-air abattoir. But what if you could have a dream property crammed full of designer furniture and groaning with your heart's desires? And even better, the only catch is that it has a bit of a 'pest' problem.

Like all tremendous writing, Philip Ridley's provocative Radiant Vermin has done nothing more than prove its prophetic potential, this contemporary fable of warning and reflection meditates on our ravenous desire to satisfy (yet never fulfil) our materialistic avarice. A wicked piece of satire, as soaked in all the hellish glow it can muster, a young couple are offered precisely what many in the country would long for; the chance at a first home. Not only that, but it's also free. They might have to be willing to sacrifice a few things along the way

Colour-coded green and blue, looking for a better life for their expected child, Ollie and Jill are doing everything new parents could feasibly consider to provide a safe and prosperous life. Well. Maybe they're doing a bit too much. Dani Heron and Martin Quinn capture shades of guilt (Catholic or otherwise), humour, and lashings of relatability in their chemistry and interactions as the young couple move into an empty new home, signing a mysterious government contract which gifts them a home in an abandoned part of town, close to a homeless 'cardboard city'.

But following a fatal home invasion – something rather miraculous, or cursed, happens.

The erratic behaviour of the second act, a garden party from hell, is a cacophonous back-and-forth of character performances from Heron and Quinn which seemingly never ends. And without one slip-up, the pair flicker through the various neighbours with an alarming speed, all building to a bombastic reveal that, if anything, Johnny McKnight's direction tempers and slows into the final moments of the show – far more impactful than the over-the-top comedic farce it could have been.

Any familiar with Ridley's work (The Fastest Clock in the Universe), knows the murkiness of morality which about to be trudged through – but what a guide we have in Julie Wilson Nimmo's Miss Dee, an enigmatic Mephistopheles figure who delights in playing with the rubble of what's left of the fourth wall while cutting around in a pink power suit. A fittingly sharp point to this trio, Heron and Quinn carry Ridley's words with a wickedly familiar delivery and pace, McKnight weaving a canny pacing to draw out humour through the performances for new and Scottish audiences.

But after all this couple has done to secure this home, we'd be remiss in not mentioning our 'fourth' player in all of this; the house. Kenny Miller's design work, though minimal (every new-home owner's dream, apparently), conjures weight in the abstract in a reversal of Ridley's comments on our materialism; a sparse set, with no props, just a line-work frame of the home. Emma Jones' lighting is an explosion of satanic colour and manipulation, creating a home which is both a showroom and the end of days. Utilised at its best storytelling mechanics to keep the Tron stage free of clutter, the drips of crimson feeding through the lighting, or the twinkling 'fairy lights' that are anything but comforting.

The seduction of a 'what is' on the table, turning the question back onto the audience in a meta-theatrical experience which goes on long beyond the Tron's walls, there's a bitter sting in the back of our minds which validates the entire show; "I mean, would I do it?". A cautionary modern fable, Radiant Vermin doesn't stretch its on-stage violence to the extent that other, similar plays do, making for a far more inventive and illustrative eruption of hellishly good entertainment and destructive consumerism.

Make whatever deal you must to catch Radiant Vermin. And we do mean whatever deal.

Hellishly Good Entertainment

Radiant Vermin runs at The Tron Theatre, Glasgow until July 13th
Running time - Two hours and twenty minutes with one interval
Photo credit - Mihaela Bodlovic

Review by Dominic Corr - contact@corrblimey.uk

Editor for Corr Blimey, and a freelance critic for Scottish publications, Dominic has been writing freelance for several established and respected publications such as BBC Radio Scotland, The Skinny, Edinburgh Festival Magazine, The Reviews Hub, In Their Own League The Wee Review and Edinburgh Guide. As of 2023, he is a member of the Critic's Award for Theatre Scotland (CATS) and a member of the UK Film Critics.