Farah Najib’s unsettling drama is a portrait of housing failure, social paralysis and exemplary storytelling. Rating
Unmissable!
Loneliness, lousy housing associations, and what happened to the woman living at Number 61? drive Farah Najib’s unsettling new three-hander at the Bush Theatre. Told with blackly comic restraint, Maggots unfolds as a sixty-minute whirlwind about neglect – personal, communal and institutional – and the consequences of everyone assuming someone else will act.
Three performers address the audience directly, openly framing themselves as storytellers rather than characters. What follows is not just one woman’s story but a collective one. The setting is Laurel House, and through a sequence of titled chapters we are guided through the months leading to the discovery of Shirley, long dead in her flat, now reduced to bones.
The structure is, on the surface, straightforward. We witness the residents’ daily lives – polite exchanges, minor grievances, building WhatsApp chatter – as a worsening smell becomes impossible to ignore. Peter Small’s intricate lighting design gives unexpected theatrical agency to the group chat, with performers embodying the emojis and reactions that accompany each insignificant message. The arrival of maggots throughout the building signals a horror everyone recognises. But nobody does anything. Instead, the play sharpens into a study of social paralysis: the pride, embarrassment and quiet self-preservation that stop people from speaking up when something is deeply wrong.
The trio handle the play’s constant shifts between narrator and character with impressive precision. Sam Baker Jones’ hapless ‘neighbourhood manager’ is played with a deeply troubling negligent swagger, capturing the infuriating brand of bureaucratic deflection that sounds helpful while achieving nothing. Marcia Lecky’s Linda is struggling to function amidst her many, many calls to the housing association, becoming a portrait of exhausted persistence. Safiyya Ingar plays student Aleena and her sweetheart father Adeel with a charming warmth, grounding the piece with a sense of ordinary decency that makes the collective inaction all the more unsettling.
Duramaney Kamara’s sound design subtly charts the passage of time, soft ambient pads marking seasonal change while residents remain trapped in stasis. The score grows increasingly insistent – hi-hats tightening the atmosphere, culminating in the jolt of the police kicking Number 61’s door in. A simple set of a sofa and chairs become multiple locations, allowing the pace to remain fluid and the storytelling to stay front and centre. Director Jess Barton has done an excellent job in keeping the action moving with clarity and control, drawing out Najib’s ear for naturalistic dialogue while preserving the play’s uneasy comic edge.
The twists and turns of the story keep us guessing. We’re lulled into a false happy ending, only to have our hope of real change taking place crushed by the cruel realities of a lack of accountability and an inquiry ‘of sorts’. In many ways, it’s an all too familiar ending – but it’s a story that needs to keep being told until change – real change – actually takes shape. It’s a vivid portrait of systemic failure, delivered with comic realism and unnerving restraint – and a sobering reminder of how easily people can disappear in plain sight.
Written by Farah Najib
Directed by Jess Barton
Set and Costumes by Caitlin Mawhinney
Sound Design and Composed by Duramaney Kamara
Lighting Design by Peter Small
Produced by Jessie Anand
Production Manager: Adam Jefferys
Stage Manager: Rose Hockaday
Maggots runs at the Bush Theatre until Saturday 28 February.
