Date: 11th September 2026
Stars: 4
London is exhausting at the best of times. In Night City, Max Wilkinson takes that feeling and runs with it, following three people trying to make a living in a city that relies on them while offering precious little security in return.
Jack (Jack Ambrose) is a taxi driver determined to keep going whatever it costs him, Tia (Bex Smith) is a waitress with ambitions beyond the job she’s doing, and Tamara (Helena Pipe) is a carer caught in a system increasingly concerned with targets and profit rather than the people she’s actually supposed to be caring for. Their lives begin separately, crossing and colliding as the play moves towards bringing the different strands together.
There’s a lot going on, sometimes perhaps a little too much. The story races through characters, relationships, jobs, nights out, illness, corporate greed, and the everyday instability of trying to survive without knowing quite what next week will look like. At points, it takes a moment to work out exactly who we’re watching or where a particular strand is heading, and the later sections try to tie things together rather more neatly than they need to.
What makes it work is the energy of the production. Jack Ambrose, Helena Pipe, and Bex Smith play far more than the three central characters, often changing role with little more than an alteration in voice, posture, or movement. It’s impressive to watch, but it also gives the city around Jack, Tia, and Tamara the feeling of constantly being in motion. People arrive, disappear, and reappear as someone completely different.
Smith is particularly good fun as Gigi, the elderly woman Tamara cares for, finding plenty of humour in the character without turning her into a caricature. Her developing relationship with Tamara also gives Helena Pipe some of the production’s warmest moments, while Pipe’s singing provides a welcome contrast to the frantic pace elsewhere.
Visually, Night City is striking. Olivia Jamieson’s set is dominated by rows of hanging chains, which the actors move between, through, and around. Combined with Arnim Friess’s lighting and video design, they can make the small space feel like a nightclub one moment and somewhere far more oppressive the next. Rose Ryan’s movement direction is just as important, particularly during the transitions, where characters seem to chase, circle, and almost crash into one another.
There’s something fitting about how relentless it all feels. London doesn’t stop because someone’s exhausted, frightened, ill, or wondering how they’re going to pay the rent, and neither does this production. Occasionally that relentlessness works against it, with so many ideas competing for space that some deserve longer than they’re given.
Even so, Night City has plenty to say about the people behind the services London takes for granted, and it finds humour and warmth among the anger. It’s ambitious, visually inventive, and carried by three performers who barely get a second to stand still.
Night City plays at Southwark Playhouse (Borough) until 3rd October 2026, and tickets are available here: https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/night-city/
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