BUSH THEATRE – UNTIL 28th FEBRUARY 2026
REVIEWED BY JACKIE THORNTON
4****
There’s a haunting sorrow and yearning to Farah Najib’s tale of neglect, dereliction of duty and lost community in her latest play Maggots.
The title in itself is enough to make one squirm and over 65-minutes we are certainly not being comforted but rather taken to task for failing to look out for our fellow humankind.
Set in a block of flats in an unremarkable corner of London, we’re told this story could happen anywhere. It could happen to you, although the narrators hope not. Jess Barton’s agile direction shifts the storytelling between three talented actors, utilising repetition and the power of three to hit home Najib’s well-crafted synonyms and obvious love of the spoken word.
Sam Barker Jones, soon to feature in Dear England for the BBC, Marcia Lecky, known for Eastenders and Ted Lasso, and Safiyya Ingar, fresh from a stunning lead role in indie feature Brides, keep the story flowing as they jump in and out of characters with wit, humour and pathos.
Caitlin Mawhinney’s simple staging refrains from showing us any evidence of decomposition but we are reminded of nature’s inevitable cycle through dried flowers hung plentifully from the lighting rig.
There are no real surprises in this portrait of community gone wrong. It’s no spoiler to say that the stench coming from number 61 reported by one dutiful neighbour is exactly what we imagine it to be. Spotlighting a mother and son, a father and daughter, a young mum and her baby and a widow, we see the possibility of a community pulling together through a shared problem, but will their connection last?
A chilling social commentary reminding us of the power and necessity of community