'The Guilty' review — Russell Tovey is phenomenal in this gripping, high-stakes thriller

Read our review of The Guilty, directed by Felix Barrett, now in performances at the Donmar Warehouse to 15 August.

Summary

• Movie The Guilty becomes a gripping stage play
• Chloë Moss adapts the story set in a police control room
• Russell Tovey is phenomenal as the police officer fielding calls
• Felix Barrett's production is a palm-sweating marvel

Police control room thriller The Guilty is already an absolutely fine 2021 film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, adapted from the 2018 Danish film Den Skyldige. That means you can pop some popcorn in the microwave, make yourself comfortable, and get all the heart-pounding tension on Netflix without leaving the house. You’d need a pretty good reason, then, to get your card out and buy a ticket for a stage adaptation.

But doubters needn’t fret. Adaptor Chloë Moss and director Felix Barrett have created a wholly theatrical, palm-sweating marvel, all in an ever-sweet 60-minute running time.

Of course, the main attraction is Russell Tovey, who brilliantly plays Joe, a police officer relegated to the control room, fielding incoming calls of varying degrees of urgency. We feel his frustration as he answers the phone to an off-their-head 17-year-old too afraid to call their mum, noise complainers, and a man who’s managed to get mugged in his own car. This is not what he trained for, after all.

Then there are the secrets he’s hiding. What led to his reassignment in the first place? Why has his wife blocked his number? And what is the big hearing he’s preparing for tomorrow morning? All of it remains blurry until the very end, when a revelation sends audible gasps through the audience. But part of the fun of Barrett’s production lies in trying to piece the puzzle together.

In Alex Eales’s characterless control room, centred around a single office desk, the drama has the perfect space to simmer before boiling over. Tovey shifts from idly throwing screwed-up pieces of paper into a miniature bin to becoming a loving father as Joe steals a few minutes chatting to his daughter, Freya, who has luckily answered his mother’s phone. In the silences, when Joe is not on call, we hear the tick of a clock and his audible sighs of despondency.

It’s a scene of total monotony, until Joe gets a call from a teary young woman who has been abducted and is now separated from her young children. Then, he kicks into almost obsessive action. With comparisons to his own family struggles, this is one he has to get right.

Supported by an ever-varied, tremendous, unseen voice cast, the four walls of the call room expand out. We hear children, distressed neighbours, Joe’s laddish mates, and another policeman on trial, all through a phone line. But so strong is the acting, we can picture them, too.

In the final section, the twists arrive fast and furious, with the final set-breaking-apart image being one of pure dramatic gold. No spoilers here, but come ready for a pulse-racing thrill. A step above the film, this is a gripping, high-stakes triumph – more than worth leaving the sofa for.

The Guilty is at the Donmar Warehouse to 15 August.

Photo credit: The Guilty (Photos by Helen Murray)