THE small yet impressive Jermyn Street Theatre is famed for putting on great plays.
This 70-seat venue consistently attracts top tier actors and allows audiences to get up close and personal with them in one of the most intimate spaces you will find in London’s West End.
It has been home to many world premieres and critically acclaimed revivals over its years, and it begins 2026 with another.
Currently on offer there is Al Miller’s fast-paced revival of Lyle Kessler’s 1983 play Orphans.
Set in Philadelphia in 1983, Kessler’s tale focuses on two orphan brothers who have managed to survive alone together for years following their mother’s death.
Chris Walley stars as Treat in the revival of Orphans at the Jermyn Street Theatre (Pic: Charlie Flint)To survive is one thing, but to achieve a decent quality of life is quite another, however.
We find them in the squalor that is their now rundown family home, where tinned tuna is on the menu every day, vodka is drank like water and watching television gameshow reruns is the only form of entertainment.
Older sibling Treat, who is well-executed by Young Offenders star Chris Walley in this production, quickly assumed the parental role between the siblings.
He is a young man who has utilised his inherent rage and consistently simmering temper to pursue a relatively successful career as a petty thief.
Fred Woodley Evans stars as Phillip in the play (Pic: Charlie Flint)Treat’s days are spent scouring the local neighbourhood to find innocent people to mug in order to keep himself in vodka and his younger brother Phillip - who spends his days hiding in the cupboard where their dead mother's clothes still hang - in tuna sandwiches.
Walley is excellent in this play.
From the furious spittle on his mouth to the anxious sweat on his brow, the Irish actor produces a character so intense that the audience is gripped on his every move from the very outset.
He also does a very good Philadelphian accent, thankfully.
Treat's brother Phillip is an altogether different kind of broken man.
Played by the equally impressive Fred Woodley Evans, we learn that he was ‘just a baby’ when their mother died, and he has pretty much spent the remainder of his life stuck inside their home, fearful of the world outside.
Fred Woodley Evans as Phillip and Forbes Masson as Harold in Orphans (Pics: Charlie Flint)As a result, when we meet him in his 20s, he is in a state of arrested development, one that is protected, indeed encouraged, by his older brother.
All this changes however with the arrival of an outsider, who also happens to be an orphan.
Forbes Masson is utterly absorbing as Harold, whom Treat drags home from a night out with the intention of holding him for ransom.
But Harold, who is in fact a gangster of sorts, has other ideas.
Fred Woodley Evans (Phillip) and Chris Walley (Treat) (Pic: Charlie Flint)Similarly broken - having also grown up without parental guidance - Harold is far further along his own criminal path, and as such carries an air of danger about him.
But he seems to have come to a crossroads in his life. Rather than exact any revenge for his attempted kidnapping, an exaggerated and excitable Harold instead wants to have a positive impact on the brothers’ lives.
He takes a shining to Phillip and Treat, which adds a tangible dose of tension to proceedings.
Fred Woodley Evans (Phillip), Chris Walley (Treat), and Forbes Masson (Harold) in Orphans (Pic: Charlie Flint)Harold sets about educating these young men on exorcising some of the demons that have gripped their lives and, despite the feeling that hangs in the air that there is something not quite right in this unlikely threesome, his work soon begins to have an impact.
Each man begins to change, their lives becoming unrecognisable even to themselves.
And it all happens in what feels like the blink of an eye, despite the two-hour run time at the Jermyn Theatre.
Bleak and gritty, but with enough comic relief to hold the audience, Orphans is a compelling watch.
Faced with the inhumanity within this unkempt trio, Kessler's writing demands we sit and wait to see if there can possibly be any light at the end of this very long and very dark tunnel.
With Orphans' short run West End revival under the careful attention of Al Miller and a powerhouse cast coming to a close this month, now is the time to go see it.
Orphans runs at the Jermyn Street Theatre until January 24. Book tickets here.
