Reviews

It’s all in the mind for the audience at the Theatre Royal until June 23rd as a spellbinding psychological thriller grips you…holds you..then throws you into a finale that really gets you thinking. Former Eastender Gianni DiMarco, aka Marc Bannerman, is smouldering in this earthy, raw and very modern play by Brit scribe Richard Harris.
Tinged with sexual tension, some semi-nudity and a few well-chosen swearwords, the chills build around a couple seemingly at odds with their new psyches in their new house, let alone that of their new neighbour. In Two Minds is one of those rare outings into the subconscious leanings of very different characters.
Bannerman plays David Freedman, a bookseller of Jewish descent, who is convinced neighbour Antony Hewlett, played by Garfield Morgan of The Sweeney fame, has murdered his wife.
Bannerman’s partner Annie Bishop, played by ex Brooksider Helen Grace, simply thinks that Hewlett is lonely and there is nothing to indicate any form of guilt.
There are some delicious touches in this four-hander as Bannerman’s house cleaner, Gina, played by Angela Simpson, wards off his somewhat pathetic sexual advances.
But what this play really shows is the way couples can become embroiled in competitive mind games, as it becomes obvious this suburban slice of life isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
Curtain-twitchers will love it as the audience is pulled one way then the other.
The revolving set by Julie Godfrey is superb, as is the climatic headlong rush for truth by Bannerman.
Startling semi-detached stuff that showed real class from a real class cast.

The only trace of his legacy as a Di Marco is the line, “I can make a pasta!” Whether it has been put in deliberately, I don’t know, but former Eastenders star Mark Bannerman’s transference from Albert Square’s Italian family to the Theatre Royal Windsor stage seems effortless. The same brooding temperament is still evident at times, but, in his stage debut, the actor known formerly only as Gianni Di Marco is a natural man of the theatre with a charasmatic stage presence.
At Wednesday’s performance early signs of nerves soon disappeared as he appeared to settle comfortably into his role of David Freedman, a young businessman whose move into a Victorian semi-detached in outer London, with his partner, Annie Bishop, is apparently beset by problems.
At times laddish, at others amusing, he and Helen Grace as the more sincere Annie, are completely convincing as a perfectly natural couple, whether they are making love or arguing. I felt like I was in the couple’s own home rather than watching them in a make-believe one.
In Two Minds is making its world premiere at Windsor. Written by Richard Harris, it is, however, very different from his award-winning previous works Outside Edge or Stepping Out, but there is evidence, perhaps, of Dead Guilty - it has a similar setting and the same, steady build-up of tension. The theme of this production is ‘neighbourliness’ and will, no doubt, send everyone home to look at their neighbours in their new light. Do you or do you not have the neighbours from hell? Do David and Annie have the neighbour from hell? And Garfield Morgan’s portrayl is more than a little unnerving.
Angela Simpson, on the other hand, is a breath of fresh air as Gina the cleaner!
The set also deserves a mention - impressively, it revolves from one part of the house to the other, though, for me, a little too often, and the ticking of next door’s clock is somewhat odd. As for the ending - it came too suddenly and abruptly - and at a time when I didn’t want it to.