Kindling | Park Theatre

Bringing friends from different areas of your life together always comes with the potential for conflict, and it is this conflict that Sarah Rickman explores in her play Kindling, currently running at North London’s Park Theatre.

The plot twist is that Mei, the friend orchestrating the gathering, has recently died, and her friends are together to scatter her ashes somewhere in a Welsh forest.

The forest, brilliantly created by set designer Abi Groves, is the star of the show, with the scent of woodland hitting audiences as soon as they enter the theatre, courtesy of a stage strewn with bark and leaf matter, while sound designer Esther Ajayi brings in the sounds of the forest, with birdsong playing an important role throughout. A forest scene also forms the background, with the rest of the set being literally carried onstage by the performers as they arrive for a night’s camping.

It is immediately clear that all is not well within the group. Ditzy Rose (performed by writer Sarah Rickman) has brought the wrong map and forgotten one of the tents, posh Jasmin (Rendah Beshoori) is too far from civilization for her liking, and Mei’s oldest friends Jules (Stacy Abalogun) and Sue (Ciara Pouncett) are continually making digs at one another. It falls to work friend and New Age enthusiast Cathy (Scarlett Alice Johnson) to attempt to keep the peace, although she throws her own issues into the mix with her terrible cake and her insistence that everyone must want to have children. 

The drama and the comedy at the heart of the piece centres around the five women’s attempts to find common ground despite how different they are and even though it becomes increasingly clear that Mei didn’t particularly like any of them, nor they her a lot of the time.

It is here that the play falters, as it is difficult to understand why any of these people would want to be friends, with one another or with Mei, or to find much sympathy for them in their dramas. There are some heartfelt moments, and some enjoyable comedy around the spilling of Mei’s ashes, but it is difficult to connect fully with the characters or the issues being raised. Menopause is a central theme of the piece, and one that is important to discuss, but the lack of connection with the characters again means that this lacks resonance.

There are some strong performances in the piece, particularly from Rendah Beshoori as the uptight Jasmin, who delivers much of the comedy in the second act as she gets rather closer to nature than she would have liked. In general it is the comic performances which land best, with highlights also from writer-performer Sarah Rickman’s clumsy Rose as she attempts to disguise the fact that the ashes have been spilled, and Scarlett Alice Johnson delivering Cathy’s more scandalous lines with gusto.

However, the character issues and some uneven pacing particularly in the first act mean that these talents are not shown to their fullest ability. There is a good idea here, but reworking is needed to allow the audiences to properly connect with the characters and the story.

Kindling runs at Park Theatre until 15th November 2025.

Tickets and More Information

★★☆☆☆ (2*)

Gifted tickets in return for an honest review | Photography by Holly Darville