Theatre Weekly
Greg Stewart
"Tovey delivers a performance of gripping precision."
Russell Tovey returns to one of the most talked-about stage roles of recent years. After a sell-out season at the Donmar Warehouse, The Guilty transfers to the West End for a strictly limited run at the Harold Pinter Theatre, and it is one of the most keenly anticipated plays of 2027.
Adapted by Chloë Moss from the acclaimed Danish film Den Skyldige, The Guilty unfolds in real time over a single, nerve-shredding hour. Joe, a police officer reassigned to the emergency call room while he awaits a hearing of his own, answers a call from a woman who has been abducted. With only a telephone and his own instincts, he sets out to save her, and as the night wears on the case, and Joe himself, begin to come apart. It is a masterclass in tension in which the most devastating events happen just out of sight, conjured entirely by the voices on the line and your own imagination.
A Real-Time Thriller
What makes The Guilty so extraordinary is its restraint. The entire drama stays with Joe in the call room, playing out through phone calls in real time, so that the audience is left to picture the horror unfolding at the other end of the line. In the hands of director Felix Barrett, the visionary founder of the immersive company Punchdrunk, that single room becomes an intensely cinematic, claustrophobic pressure-cooker, and Tovey’s performance holds it all together with gripping precision.
The production reunites a first-rate creative team, with set design by Alex Eales, lighting by Anna Watson, sound by Gareth Fry and video by Luke Halls. Running at just over an hour with no interval, it is a short, sharp, unmissable shot of theatrical adrenaline.
Why It’s Worth the Watch
Here is why The Guilty is one of the hottest tickets of 2027:
- A knockout star turn. Russell Tovey, of Years and Years, Being Human and a long list of stage triumphs, is on stage for the entire play, and critics called his Donmar performance one of gripping precision.
- Edge-of-your-seat tension. Told in real time and almost entirely through phone calls, it is sixty-five unbroken minutes of mounting dread - theatre as a genuine thriller.
- A visionary director. Felix Barrett, the mastermind behind Punchdrunk, brings his unmatched command of atmosphere to one contained, electrifying room.
- A strictly limited season. It plays the Harold Pinter only until 3 April 2027, direct from a sell-out Donmar run, so tickets will not last.
