Humble Boy, a quietly ruminative, beautifully constructed drama
about the ties that unbind a mother and her son, was always
going to be a tough act for Charlotte Jones to follow. But she's
done so with tremendous accomplishment in a tensely textured,
hugely atmospheric new play called The Dark that pulses with
urban dread, despair and darkness, literal as well as
metaphorical.  Eight light bulbs hang over various rooms in the
shabby multi-levelled house that designer Lez Brotherston has
created on the Donmar stage. The house has been divided into
flats that provide a home for three families. In Jones' vivid
snapshots of domestic life, one couple Louisa (Anastasia Hille)
and her architect husband Barnaby (Matt Bardock) have just had a
baby, and the sound of its crying echoes around the house.
Meanwhile, a desperately lonely man John (Stuart McQuarrie), who
works in a video shop, negotiates around the demanding elderly
mother he lives with (Sian Phillips). Meanwhile outside, a
braying crowd of teenagers who su