HUNDREDS & THOUSANDS Time Out’s Critics’ Choice

Lou Ramsden’s HUNDREDS & THOUSANDS has opened at the Soho Theatre, where it will run until 16th July, to strong reviews.  A Critic’s Circle Most Promising Playwright nominee and former Theatre503 writer in residence, Lou’s recent credits include BREED and DECADE for Theatre503.

Directed by Lisa Spirling, the play follows Lorna as she embarks on a new relationship with Allan (played by Stuart Laing), throwing caution to the wind and moving in with him at his isolated farmhouse, where it quickly becomes menacingly clear that not all is as it seems.  

Designed by Polly Sullivan, with sound and lighting by Tony Award winner Gregory Clarke and Tim Mascall respectively HUNDREDS & THOUSANDS is a darkly comic and disturbing lesson that not all fairy-tales have happy endings.....

Hundreds and Thousands [...] is Lou Ramsden’s powerful and compelling account of one family’s descent into a nightmare.

Using storytelling techniques and vivid stage images ... the playwright creates a thrilling atmosphere that has the audience on the edge of their seats.
The Arts Desk (Aleks Sierz) ****

Lou Ramsden’s latest play is a nicely dark-hearted piece of work.

With Polly Sullivan’s traverse design of a woodland cottage, the effect is to create a kind of fairy-tale realism mixing the folksy and the modern- David Lynch meets the brothers Grimm, with ghastly echos of Josef Fritzl.

Lisa Spirling’s production deploys an unnerving sound design by Gregory Clarke which mingles eerie classical, synthesised chants and the murmur of children playing.
Time Out (Patrick Marmion) – Critics’ Choice ****

The best play I’ve seen this year.  Gripping, tense, thought-provoking and dripping black humour at every turn.
London Festival Fringe (Farah Khalique) *****