"Rock Pool" / "Tender Napalm"

Two theatre reviewing assignments in two days – both two-handers, but aimed at very different audiences.

First up, at Sherman Cymru, was “Rock Pool” by China Plate/Inspector Sands – a play for families (children of three and upwards), in which a crab and a prawn get stranded in a shallow rock pool, and become friends, despite the former’s inclination to eat the latter. The next day at Chapter, I saw “Tender Napalm”, a decidedly adult drama about a couple who create a profanely violent fantasy world as a means of coping with loss; the second of two controversy-baiting Philip Ridley plays being given their Welsh premieres by Company Of Sirens.

Both with a theme of uneasy co-existence in difficult circumstances; both highly accomplished productions.