Written by Jack Hunter

Directed by Amie Burns Walker

Review by Gabriel Rogers

Tickets from £12.00

In the wonderful Traverse Theatre, armed with a ‘tattie dog’ and a pint of coke, I awaited with anticipation the beginning of Jack Hunter’s The Wolves At The Door. Hunter’s fifty-minute play is a contemporary piece which focuses on ever-troubling problems in our society; the cost-of-living crisis and the threat of increasing energy prices. Whilst it would be easy to get lost in the magnitude of such difficult subject matter, Hunter does not and smartly focuses on how a single-parent household is affected by these hardships.  

Daniel, played by Ciaran Stewart, is the play’s protagonist. Out-of-work, and recently divorced – he tries to make the best out of his situation whilst simultaneously maintaining a relationship with Belle, his daughter. When he loses his job as an administrator at a tech company, Daniel is placed on benefits and Universal Credit. After paying rent, he is left with seventeen pounds a week and must decide between heating his flat or spending what little money he has on other necessities. Much like the “little piggies” in his nursery rhyme, Daniel encourages the very real “wolves” to gather outside his door when he falls behind on his payments. Hunter’s choice to focus on rising energy costs and heating feels particularly current, especially given Sir Keir Starmer’s recent decision to cut winter fuel payments to the most vulnerable in society. Stewart is impressive in the role of Daniel, expressing the fears and anxieties of a man on the brink whilst also depicting someone desperately trying to maintain their dignity.  

Malc, played by Ben Ewing, takes up the mantle of antagonist in the play. A debt collector, Malc is a boisterous character – always joking and swearing – but ruthlessly unsympathetic to Daniel and his plight. He dismisses Daniel as a scrounger who is always “on the take” and thinks that everyone can help themselves out of poverty through “graft”. It is Malc and the energy company hierarchy behind him who make up the titular “wolves at the door”. Malc butts heads with the far more empathetic Sussanne, an energy-company engineer played by Beth Marshall. Where Sussanne notices the children’s clothes and toys strewn around Daniel’s flat and thinks about the ramifications of turning off the power, Malc instead sees an opportunity to make a bonus for catching someone late on their payments. Ewing and Sussanne bounce off each other well and develop their character’s relationship with one another from a place of joking and bantering to one of resentment and distrust. 

The play ends with the clever use of Radiohead’s “A Wolf At The Door”, a depressing tune which explores similar themes of societal failure. Daniel is left curled up on the floor as the song rouses, and his daughter continues her father’s nursery rhyme – asking if the big bad wolf will come back and “eat the piggies”. Stewart’s face became a mask of fear and anxiety, which allowed the audience to glimpse the inner turmoil of his character as his problems mounted against him. Whilst understandable with such a limited playing time, the performance perhaps could have done with more of these moments of ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ as the intricacies of Daniel’s situation were explained in detail to an audience that may have enjoyed their own deductions. The subject matter of Hunter’s play is varied in its message and is safe in the hands of director Amie Burns Walker who was able to create a snappy performance which captured the audience’s attention whilst feeling realistic, sensitive and genuine. 

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