Dear Martin review – darkly comic prison pen-pal drama lacks bite

The Guardian

09-03-2025

It starts off with marital infidelity after Dave discovers his wife has been writing love letters to a prisoner in a high-security hospital facility. Outraged, he writes to Martin himself and Martin writes back.
So Dave and Martin begin as pen-pals before becoming real-life pals when Dave starts visiting – and inexplicably relying on Martin's guidance for matters of love and romance.
Madeleine Brettingham's play about a psychopath-behind-bars and a naive visitor in his thrall is written in a darkly comic vein, and contains the promise of unpicking masculine friendship as well as sending up the groupies who flock around high-profile criminals in the true crime genre.
Brettingham, better known for writing TV comedies for Frankie Boyle and Mitchell and Webb among others, treats the subject of mental health and male vulnerability lightly and without enough real bite.
It is tightly directed by Wiebke Green but plays out larkily and nothing quite makes sense, even within the logic of the absurdist setting (Kit Hinchliffe's spare stage design is a wash of psychiatric white).
Dave is too gullible, the story flimsy to the point of silliness, the characters too broad-brush. The barbarity of Martin's crime is only hinted at and his manipulations of Dave are entirely unbelievable. None of it has the complexity that makes this story of masculine crisis, mental health and criminality in any way meaningful.
So you are left with the funny moments, of which there are a few, and some performances entertain, too: Alex Mugnaioni, as Martin, is darkly charming and Mephistophelean. Edward Judge, as Martin's fellow inmate, is the cliche of a smiling, simpleton and Dave, played by Ben Simpson, is so gullible that he seems childlike, but Amelia Donkor is accomplished in switching between multiple characters.
'We are all psychopaths deep down,' says Martin. Are we? The play does not go any way to proving that. Where it takes hold is in the dangerous face-offs between Martin and his psychiatrist (Donkor). A mutual hostility builds and bears the potential for a darker and more serious play.
Brettingham's talent for funny writing is clear and the production has all the signs for a sharper, darker play imprisoned within this one.
At Arcola theatre, London, until 29 March