Summerhall
Four stars
Frankie Donnelly never meant to go to prison. He never meant to become an addict and a dealer either. As Ed Edwards’ new monologue shows, however, he was a victim of the times Frankie was living in. It’s the early 1990s, the Strangeways prison riots have just kicked off, the Berlin Wall has not long come down and the old certainties of political belief systems have been replaced by hedonistic excess.
Caught up in all this, Frankie takes the rap for others as he is sent down for three years. It’s something of a cushy number, mind, as he becomes part of a prison community that includes ‘De Niro’, who pretty much runs the place, Kenny, who tries to play guitar like the Velvet Underground, ex para Bron, who may or may not be having an affair with one of the guards, and Irish Tony, whose name conjures up a world of unsettled scores. As a man of letters, Frankie becomes a proxy writer of romantic missives for Bron as he ends up embroiled in the everyday soap opera going on around him.
All this is brought to dynamic life by Mark Thomas in a relentless solo portrait of the prison underground that shaped Frankie in this new collaboration with Edwards following their success with England & Me. Director Charlotte Bennett brings this collaboration between Paines Plough, Live Theatre Newcastle, Theatre Royal Plymouth and Ellie Keel Productions in association with Synergy Theatre Project to life on designer Lydia Denno’s crash barrier strewn set. The result is an insightful look at prison politics, class, activism and the need for freedom on every level.
And if you think this is just another prison memoir by someone who got out of the system, just wait until the very last line of a play that sucker punches you with tales of redemption before the brutal truth of where we are now comes home.
Until August 25. 11.50am
The Herald, August 6th 2025
Ends
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