Review: Vincent in Brixton
@ the Orange Tree until April 18th 2026
Director: Georgia Green
Writer: Nicholas Wright
Cast: Niamh Cusack, Jeroen Frank Kales, Amber van der Brugge, Rawaed Asde & Ayesha Ostler
First performed in 2002, Nicholas Wright’s predominantly fictionalised account of Vincent van Gogh’s visit to Brixton in 1873 is a quaint and mild-mannered affair, and so too is Georgia Green’s safe revival. With the obvious caveat that this is the Orange Tree, a fabulous little theatre but one to which adventure and radicalism are somewhat anathema, everything from the set design to the staging to how Green directs her performers feels a little too cautious and tame, even though the script’s ruminations on loneliness and depression are never twee nor glib. Given the intentional anachronisms in the text and how blasé with the truth Wright is, it’s a shame that Green plays things so economically.
There is, however, much to commend in this production and in the text itself. Wright’s bleak and incisive exploration of the ultimate futility of both art and companionship in the face of such all-consuming melancholy is well done, and the decision to project the mental health issues we most associate with van Gogh, who took his own life at the tender age of 37, onto another character entirely is intriguing. Interesting too is the romantic relationship between the youthful, charismatic van Gogh and the older, sullen landlady with whom he boards, and the chemistry between Jeroen Frank Kales and Nimah Cusack as these two characters is a delightful mix of tender and giddy.
Though there is a stiffness and an inconsistency to some of the performances, Cusack is as reliable as always. She has excellent comic timing and a real lightness of touch that enhances the emotional impact of her character’s more maudlin episodes, and she is very much the glue that holds the piece together throughout. In her hands, lines that flirt a little too intimately with triteness are instead profound and witty, and she tempers some of Frank Kales’ excesses with a performance that is anchored and nuanced. Where he gets laughs with his eagerness and his silliness, she achieves them with a mere glance or dry aside, and she imbues the play’s more emotional moments with real maturity.
This is an enjoyable and passable production of a play that is perhaps a little darker and more callous than Green allows it to be. It is, for better or worse, perfectly suited to the Orange Tree Theatre (I saw it two days after turning 35 and was still by far the youngest person in attendance) and it survives on the strength of Cusack’s performance and the intricacies of Wright’s script, which is painted in broad strokes but nonetheless captures some fundamental truths about love and the isolating contradictions of both aging and youth.
Also, the ice cream at the Orange Tree is banging.
Score: ⭐⭐⭐