Sorter review

Two of the finest dramas to come out of Wales in recent years are Gary Owen and Rachel O’Riordan’s Iphigenia in Splott and Killology, both uncompromising responses to how we wilfully discard the most reviled yet vulnerable members of society. Two alumni from those productions, Sophie Melville (fresh from another glorious revival of Iphigenia at the Lyric) and Richard Mylan, explore similar terrain here in a brand-new production. The impact, like comets colliding, is no less excoriating. This is Mylan’s own script – a superb writing debut – based on his own struggles recovering from heroin addiction. The almost unbearable authenticity is striking. This is not an outsider’s view – misery voyeurism – but the unconfined joy and despair of addiction laid bare.

Sorter is a two-hander that is both duet and duel in equal measure. Example A (Melville) and Example B (Mylan) each tell their own stories, criss-crossing between disparate, desperate tragedies. Melville plays the more typical version of an addict, begging for coins in an NCP, just enough for her to cross the threshold of her favourite dealer. One of Welsh theatre’s best actors, Melville has an extraordinary gift of lending any character a spiky tenderness. Her eyes threaten and plead all at once. Meanwhile, Richard Mylan’s character is the working-class boy made good – a capable but haunted junior nurse unravelled by the pressures of working in a creaking healthcare system. The swiftness of his decline is frighteningly relatable, a seemingly minor temptation escalating horribly.
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