While We Wait
This is my first visit to Battersea since the closure of the Turbine Theatre and its regeneration as the Arches Lane Theatre. At first glance much seems the same, it’s slightly less polished than it once was, but it’s good to be back in the tunnel that has delivered so much creativity in the past.
The advertising blurb has promised much “A man who is experiencing life in slow motion falls for a woman whose life is speeding by”. I cannot imagine how they are going to make this work -if I am honest, I arrive a little sceptical!
Entering the auditorium I’ve never seen the space so stripped back. The stage is literally a black-box – and not a very attractive one at that, dressed only with six illuminated cubes. My heart sinks a little, this new work is hardly being helped by the space. I need not have worried – the writing, the direction and the delivery didn’t need any help!
The warming of the space begins immediately as Ricky Oakeley (as Lee) takes to the stage. Ricky plays an exhausted nurse on the endless treadmill of taking bloods for random patients – who always sit in the wrong seat. Ricky makes his character so believable you feel like he is living his own story. He tries to say all the right things, but somehow seems to say all the wrong things – until in an instant he sees that face – the face of Trudy – and time stands still (or at least slows down so that everything in her presence seems special). He wasn’t expecting this at the end of a long shift – and yet he can’t help himself.
Of course it can’t be as simple as this, Trudy (played by Kirsten Callaghan) is at the hospital because she is ill – terminally ill and with limited time left, life seems to be speeding by and she has so much more left to do! Places to go, things to do, men to sleep with! And yet somehow, they find that together the world finds another time – their time.
It’s so difficult to say why this play is so good. There is a quality in the writing that allows you to watch the characters going through a really difficult subject, whilst at the same time love them for who they are and long for a happy ending – even when you have been told this is not possible. Lee is so determined to change the ending (and their relationship so loveable) that you are lured into a false sense of believing that he really could do anything – only to realise, like us all, his life is full of good intentions.
As for the sparsity of the set – we need no more. I could see this playing working in a variety of theatres.
There is a scene in the play that is set in a restaurant where our unlikely pair eat in the dark, (best to see the play to understand why). It feels agonizingly long, and terribly painful. We can see time spinning in different ways. And yet despite the pain of the scene (and the tears rolling down my face) and my longing for it not to be as it is, I am so invested in the characters that I would happily sit through another hour of the scene if it would have brought about a happy ending!
You leave the theatre reminded of what we already know. Time is a concept limited to us only by our life span. Some people we engage with make time fly, and we long to be with them more. Others seem to make a moment last an eternity, for good or for ill. And occasionally we meet someone when we just want time to stand still – for whatever reason.
With writing as good as Doe Wilmann’s While We Wait, I hesitate to offer a review as my words feel it can never do the play justice. My simple advice would be “Make time to see this play”. And take plenty of tissues because you’ll laugh and cry!
This show was reviewed at Arches Lane Theatre, London on the 5th March 2026 where it runs until the 7th March 2026. Tickets available here: While We Wait by Doe Wilmann | Arches Lane Theatre
Review written by Paul Wood
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Photo credit: Alex Newton, Tall Guy Pictures
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