It’s rare that a story makes you think a communal haunting might be a good catalyst for sibling reconciliation. It’s unlikely that that’s really the primary intent behind Callum McCartney’s Playback, but it’s definitely a possible take away. Despite the extreme premise, there is a lot of feeling and depth to this familial drama that asks the question: what if your abusive dad died, but didn’t leave?
Antwerp Mansion has made its 2025-26 debut, taking on the guise of a well-worn family home left to siblings Sara (Hattie Wood), Maddy (Theodore Anderson-Lincoln), and Robin (Fred Potts). Sara, the oldest, more responsible – and more on edge – is struggling to manage her younger brother Robin’s more laissez-faire, almost unstable personality in the wake of their father’s recent death, and tensions only rise with Maddy’s arrival after years of fractious absence.
Throughout it all, some version of their father, ghostly or zombie-like (Paddy Stockwell), lingers in an old armchair. The credit must go to designer Benedict Zephyr and the production team for making Stockwell particularly ghoulish: though it would be hard to pass him off as a man old enough to be anybody’s father, his strange youth adds a wistful element to the way his children must see him.
The play opens on the morning of the funeral, with Robin describing a strange and unnerving dream he had the night before about their dad, and from there unspools into a tightly wound emotional three-way tug of war between brother and sisters as the shadow of unresolved issues looms over them.
Finding an old cassette and tape player, the siblings are forced to relieve their early childhoods as they hear their dad’s old superhero games he used to play with them (replayed to great effect in a gloomy, smoke-filled Antwerp). It’s evidently a relic from a time before it all went wrong and, ironically, it’s through these recordings that his malevolent spirit comes out to haunt them.
In a series of stilted, fraught conversations between family members, we see the picture of this family’s dysfunction come to life. Sara, forced into a lifelong habit of responsibility and duty, can’t bear seeing Maddy – outspoken and obviously braver – back at home after she escaped for so long, but she’s also growing tired of taking care of Robin, and resents the chance he’s had that she never got while Maddy is free to encourage him.
The ghost of their father is able to find fault in all of them, dogging their footsteps and taking a moment to berate each child in turn.
Playback has a well-executed, thoughtful setup, and easily tapped into the rich interpersonal drama that the premise would suggest. It wasn’t at all hard to sympathise with all three of the siblings despite their clashes, and although there are some themes that are perhaps not given their full weight, like the suggested impact of class, the emotional understanding the audience gets of their home life growing up feels as tangible and heavy as the presence of the ghost in the armchair.
The production shines in its more serious moments rather than the more comedic lines, though some to serve to break up the tension well, and the fantastical, exorcism-based ending felt like a rewarding climax to the building emotion.
Hattie Wood as Sara was also a particular highlight. Her shows of frustration and quiet resignation were artfully grounded, and her rare outbursts vivid and moving. It is a stellar performance made doubly impressive by Wood’s late arrival to the Playback team, among whom she seems to have fitted in seamlessly.
All in all, UMDS‘ Playback was a well formed and cohesive production, with co-directors Scarlett Bartman and Roisin Harder carefully distilling the familiar horror of familial conflict into a tightly dynamic piece of narrative theatre.
