'Wild' Hampstead Theatre ****

In this day of age, it is really easy for secrets to be exposed, but some secrets are being made public and a number of organisations are competing to get the person responsible on their side and work for them. The Hampstead Theatre’s production of, Mike Bartlett’s freshly written play, ‘Wild’ is such a thought-provoking and stimulating show that starts to unravel in a good way, additionally, the offerings were number one during the whole performance.

‘Wild’ is supposedly set in a hotel room in Moscow where we’re habituated with American Andrew who has been incarcerated in the hotel room after he has been exposing classified information on a site like WikiLeaks is visited by an unnamed Woman who appears to work for an establishment similar to the one mentioned in the hope that he’ll agree to sign a contract with her and the institute that she works for. Their immediate introduction seems exceedingly obscure and the unnamed Woman is flirtatious and acrimonious with regards to how Andrew’s life is at risk, on the flip side, Andrew is anxious as he hasn’t got the foggiest what her place of employment is and is the Woman really who says she is. We are informed as with Andrew that America isn’t the safest place in the world anymore and that CCTV may have to be used to keep people impregnable. Over the course of the performance, Andrew obviously feels isolated from the world and because the Woman attempts to arouse him, but due to the fact that Andrew has a girlfriend and makes it very clear that no form of relationship is going to occur. In the process of the Woman’s interrogation you can see that Andrew is apprehensive and asks to see her credentials but she doesn’t seem to have her ID, nevertheless, the Woman who is a bit of a sozzled old seadog and in order to keep Andrew on side she sinks a blunt small instrument into her hand and happily makes herself bleed. To prevent himself from going insane, Andrew does a few fitness routines, notwithstanding, he’s really alarmed that a pseudonymous Man knocks on the hotel room door and claims that he is from a co-operation similar to the Woman’s, as well as, he has no forms of ID on him either so it is immensely sketchy as Andrew has to decide who is the most trustworthy person. There’s a really tearful moment from Andrew as he is really missing his family and girlfriend and has no idea when he’ll be able to speak to or even see them; as such he has a good cry and needs to be released from captivity. The outlandish conditions are about to be confessed when both the Woman and Man come into the hotel room together and it appears that the two have been conspiring together against Andrew all this time and at the finale, on what can only be compared to ‘The Trueman Show’ Jim Carey film, the hotel room is transformed into an empty TV studio or a black box theatre space and it seems that Andrew’s entombment has been a complete joke on his behalf. Bartlett’s narrative is colossally brilliant as Andrew who to be honest has brought the situation on himself, yet due to the Woman and Man keep pestering him for his allegiance it leads me to question whether anyone can be trusted and the plot seems to connect ‘The Trueman Show’ and ‘Big Brother’ together and "Big Brother is Watching You!" would be perfect in this scenario. 

One found the performances by the company of, ‘Wild’ to be vivid as the cryptic message that is conveyed through the character’s perspectives, furthermore the voice projections and movements did do themselves justice. Jack Farthing is astonishing as the cute lead role, Andrew; in particular how we see that he has no real understanding why he has been imprisoned in this fashion and his trepidation where he has been bombarded by Woman and Man shows that there is more than what is really happening and when he is suspended on the chair in the “hotel room”, it is a somewhat dystopian reality. Caoilfhionn Dunne is consequential as the enigmatic, Woman; mainly how chilling she does come across with how manipulative she is to Andrew where her horrible dialogue makes a grown man cry, on the other hand, when she makes herself bleed but in actual fact she has lied proves how brutal she is as a female and this is very worrying to be frank. John Mackay is wondrous as the smart, Man; primarily how we see that he does give the impression that he is more credulous than the Woman as he does not make himself look like a silly fool, paradoxically, throughout the show we get to see how organisations like MI5 or MI6 try to recruit their workers and experts and this is rather intriguing. 

James Macdonald’s direction is miraculous here as he has formed a production that presents a lot of twists and turns that definitely keeps you on your toes which is fantastic with regards to whether Andrew’s plight is totally real and how the whole circumstance makes it so hard to know who to trust in these situations, plus the classifications were terrific. Miriam Buether’s design was out of this world as the whole hotel room does appear to be like a standard hotel room from a chain of hotels, however the transformation is nothing like I have ever seen in a design and honestly it is mind blowing and Buether deserves to win an award for it. Overall, the experience of, ‘Wild’ was so surreal but with positive reasons for the weirdness and if you didn’t get a chance to see it then you have missed out especially with the design that is phenomenal.