The Pitchfork Disney ★★★ King's Head Theatre | Aug 27 - Oct 4, 2025


The Pitchfork Disney can be seen as a twisted reimagining of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. However, where Beckett offers a profound meditation on existential despair, Philip Ridley replaces this with an exploration of humanity’s dark fascination with the grotesque and horrific. Just as children are both terrified and enthralled by the villains in fairy tales, Ridley taps into that same primal curiosity, the magnetic pull of what disturbs us. Ridley’s counterparts to Vladimir and Estragon are Presley and Haley, two infantilised adults seemingly trapped in a state of arrested development, holed up in their childhood home. They bicker, tell stories, and take drugs as a way of coping with an unnamed trauma and the outside world. Their claustrophobic construction is invaded by the unsettling figures of Cosmo and Pitchfork, Ridley’s versions of Pozzo and Lucky, who bring with them a wave of surreal menace and psychological manipulation. Ned Costello and Elizabeth Connick deliver compelling performances as Presley and Haley; their soliloquies are both hypnotic and unsettling. Indeed, Ridley’s monologues, rich with linguistic flair, are dazzling showcases of verbal dexterity. Yet, for all their intensity and theatricality, they never reach the philosophical depth of Beckett’s original. William Robinson is memorably bizarre as the insect-eating Cosmo, while Matt Yulish exudes an appropriate menace as the enigmatic Pitchfork. Ridley's play is grotesque, darkly comic, and often shocking. But while it may provoke moments of visceral reaction such as a gasp or a shiver, it ultimately fails to achieve the same emotional or intellectual resonance as the work it echoes. Despite its references to Beckett's drama, The Pitchfork Disney is most likely to appeal to fans of The Nightmare on Elm Street.

Rated: ★★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Charles Flint

When, Where, Getting there:
Map & Location: 115 Upper St, London N1 1QN, UK

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