Dick at Riverside Studios.Maybe that’s Kinneen’s point—Dick’s characters want more, too.
Noah, Ruby, Bailey, River, and Cleo are all on the verge of an existential crisis. After all, 26 is closer to 50 than to being born. Dick follows them through an indeterminate setting over an indeterminate timeframe, as they gather for birthday parties and their following drunken musings, coffee dates and mental breakdowns. They are each lost in their own way, trying to hold onto each other, push each other, ultimately spiralling toward their own demise.
Sounds bleak, right? The script of the first act wouldn’t have you think so. It’s sharp, punchy, and funny. Frederick Russell’s Ruby has stepped straight out of Skins, with charming, rich schoolboy energy and obvious chemistry with Max Brennan as River, whose brooding intensity and bluntness earned some of the loudest laughs of the night.
Bailey (Andi Bickers) and Cleo (Nina Fidderman) might be seen as the glue holding the boys together, but they shine in their own right. Bickers is more than meets their sunshine-y persona, while Fidderman’s tight-lipped demeanour warms beautifully throughout, a real slow burn.
And then there’s Noah, played by Joseph Lynch. He’s the drunk, rambling uncle of the party who doesn’t want to admit he’s drunk. He is philosophical, meandering, and borderline arrogant. I loved him. And then, in the second act, I lost my grasp of his point. The script tries to be profound, but can’t quite get a foothold.
Still, Dick is a brave show; it explores kink, drug use, and suicidality with tenderness. Kinneen has a way with long silences: a whole wordless scene between Ruby and River, charged with anticipation and poignancy, gripped me—along with Noah, Ruby, and Bailey’s totally platonic foray into new sexual but nonsexual dynamics. These are the standout moments, a suggestion that actions really do speak louder than words—or long-winded philosophical speeches.
Overall, Dick does carry sparks of promise and will make any mid existential crisis Gen Z think, but it could do with shortening and focusing on what exactly it wants to say. Maybe then, it will really hit hard.
Dick plays at Riverside Studios until 25 June
