Review: HEART WALL at Bush Theatre

Stuart King 15 April, 2026, 11:17

We’re somewhere in the north west of England at The Sun Inn pub, and it’s karaoke night. We know this because various audience members have been getting up and singing in the space prior to the start of Kit Withington’s HEART WALL which opened on Tuesday evening at the ever delightful Bush Theatre. The set-up proves a quirky initiation to proceedings.

Rowan Robinson in HEART WALL. Photo by Harry Elletson.

Franky (Rowan Robinson) has left behind her London architectural office job, her boyfriend and her flat, to return home for a weekend visit with her parents. She is unexpected, and her dad Dez (Deka Walmsley) is hot and flustered by his daughter’s arrival and appears vaguely distracted. He’s also sporting a rash which he unconvincingly attributes to a skin reaction to bath salts. More importantly (to Franky), he claims to have no idea where Paul Scholes has gone! All Franky knows, is that her pet ginger rabbit (get it?) was in his hutch in the corner where she left him a year ago and now he’s nowhere to be seen. This twee and unconvincing device is employed ostensibly to give Franky a reason to hang around while they search for her pet over the coming days. In reality, very little searching takes place and instead, she gets to linger more than a month while she meddles in her parents’ situation and tries to figure out why there seems to have been a breakdown in her mum and dad’s relationship.

Mum Linda (a gently patient Sophie Stanton) has been spending time with another man, which we learn, is as much an exercise in retaining her sanity as anything else, for things have been soporific and dull for some time. Gradually the reason which underpins the couple’s stagnation is revealed. Blended into the gently simmering mix, are local bar owner Valentine (Aaron Anthony) who has stepped-up since the landlady — his ageing grandma — took to her bed, and pub regular and Franky’s one-time best friend Charlene (a confident turn from relative newcomer Olivia Forrest) who displays a considered line in northern bluntness and is not afraid to share her viewpoint about any situation’s realities. This she manages to achieve, with mild sassiness and a genuine likability.

In a nutshell, that’s about it. Those things we talk about, those things which we don’t. The impact which silence can have on relationships. Honesty vs uncomfortable truth. Emotional bravery vs emotional limbo. There’s nothing especially groundbreaking, but as familial yarns go, it succeeds in being engaging due largely to each of the cast members delivering their characters with well-rounded charm and a genuine sense of empathy. Perhaps with a few re-writes around the woollier plot-lines it could become a sharper and tighter vehicle, but there is already a great deal to enjoy.

HEART WALL runs approx 90mins (depending on those early karaoke elements) and is due to continue at Bush Theatre until 16th May.