Little Brother review – gripping prize winner captures siblings in distress

It’s the middle of the night in Belfast. Twentysomething Niall is deeply distressed and calls his sister, Brigid, in an attempt to stem his agony and slow his racing mind. Their conversation is surprisingly funny as Brigid, who keeps whispering to someone in bed beside her, attempts to placate her brother. The dialogue brims with affection, frustration, fear and sorrow, as well as an electric tension as we wait for Niall – clearly on the edge of doing something quite terrible – to make up his mind.

That’s just the opening scene of Eoin McAndrew’s vivid new play. The winner of the 2024 Verity Bargate award, it is quite hard to categorise but very easy to admire and enjoy. As Niall attempts to recover from his breakdown, the play initially verges on satire. A bewildered Brigid (Catherine Rees) is met with a barrage of absurd advice, as she tries to keep her brother – who has just set himself on fire – from further self-harm. Stashing the candles away, suggests McAndrew, probably isn’t going to fix this.

Spiky … Laura Dos Santos (left) and Catherine Rees in Little Brother. Photograph: Camilla Greenwell

In Emma Jordan’s assured production, the satirical sections are aided by spikily comic performances from Laura Dos Santos (as a doctor and counsellor) and Conor O’Donnell (as Brigid’s sidelined and increasingly sulky boyfriend). McAndrew’s writing pulses with fury at a care system that is even more broken than the swathes of people who need help. However, despite being funny and pointed, these scenes also jar a little next to the subtler and more effective domestic scenes between Brigid, her boyfriend and her brother.

Recent graduate Cormac McAlinden captivates as Niall, who is such a convincing muddle of feelings – corrosively disturbed but also capable of silliness, tenderness, pettiness and joy. In one unforgettable scene, McAlinden claws at himself, scrapes at the floor, rages and bounces off the walls of Zoë Hurwitz’s striking set, a series of interlocking white cubes, blank and confining. The periphery of the set throbs and glows, revealing a series of pipes – the inner workings of a troubled city, a restless body and a disturbed mind.

At Soho theatre, London, until 22 November