No Man's Land | Wales Art Review | 1 September 2016

"Stewart and McKellen have the audience in the palms of their hands from the outset – their immense stage presence demanding unwavering attentiveness. Whilst the writing itself is undoubtedly comical, it is the actors’ impeccable delivery of the lines which realises its true comedic value. Likewise, Sean Mathias has directed the play with consummate skill, instilling humour in even the most prosaic of actions, but it is the pair’s ability to turn humour into hilarity with the slightest of movements and changes in facial expression, which truly breathes life into the performance.

The absurdist nature of the play emerges in the characters’ “quaint little perversions” and unpredictability, both in actions and in words. Long periods of stasis are juxtaposed with sudden motion as they careen from maudlin to flamboyant throughout their superficially unconnected anecdotes. Owen Teale’s Briggs is a contradictory character, simultaneously the harshest and softest of the four men and often adding a layer of menace to otherwise innocuous statements. Conversely, Damien Molony’s Foster has a lightness of tone, even when discussing the metaphorical No Man’s Land “which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older, but remains forever, icy and silent.”"