Theatre Royal Windsor – until 25 July 2026
Reviewed by Mike Linane
4****
Haven’t we all been on a family camping weekend that didn’t quite go to plan? The Hidden Dangers of Camping is about one such weekend but Carry On Camping it is not! When a seemingly happily married couple take their two daughters and two sons away for a camping weekend with another adult couple all seems set for a perfectly normal 48 hours. Jump forward 20 years and we again meet Casey, one of the daughters, now grown up and with a daughter of her own. Casey just wants what she thinks is best for Meg but when she discovers that Meg has made certain lifestyle choices that she doesn’t necessarily agree with she is pulled back to that fateful camping trip that wasn’t actually as perfect as it seemed. As past and present collide, long buried secrets and truths surface.
This play covers many thought provoking issues including parents living the lifestyle they think is best for them without any thought being given to the emotional scars this might leave on their children and the generational divide where parents and children are not capable of being able to talk openly to each other and a parent being desperate to try to break the cycle she experienced with her own parents and not wishing to suffer it with her own child.
Charlie Brooks (of EastEnders fame) leads the cast as the mother Ruby who goes on the camping weekend determined to enjoy herself to the full and then we see her 20 years later and witness the toll her lifestyle has taken not only on her but also her two daughters. Brooks gives a very good performance as the woman determined not to be dictated to by the wants and needs of her children or husband and proves that she can more than hold her own on the stage just as much as she can on tv.
Max Brown (best known for appearing in the Sister Boniface Mysteries) ably supporters as Sawyer, the husband who should have been careful about what he wished for.
Polly Allen and Jess Nesling are excellent as Casey, young and old. It is Nesling’s performance that really binds the whole show together as we slowly watch her come to terms with the life she has lead since that camping weekend and the secrets she has felt compelled to keep. Her performance is outstanding.
This play, at times, is not an easy watch but it is most certainly one that you should watch. It will certainly appeal to women of all ages (although you might not want to take your shy, retiring maiden aunt along with you unless you want her to have an attack of the vapours) and certainly most men could learn a thing or two about thinking that the other man’s grass being greener when it isn’t necessarily so.
Liesl Wilke has written a play that will most certainly have you leaving the theatre with so many thoughts exploding in your head as you try to come to terms with what you have just seen and Bronagh Lagan’s direction is spot on as we switch back and forth between the present day and 20 years previous.
The Hidden Dangers of Camping is currently playing at the Theatre Royal Windsor until Saturday 25 July and is a play you simply must see. It is one of the best new plays I have seen in a very long time and is not to be missed even if you have to camp outside the theatre to ensure you get a ticket.