Hurts Given and Received: 4 stars from WOS

What's On Stage awarded the play 4 stars and have another small photo of Tom as Bach. Read the full review on the WOS website.

...Brilliantly directed by Gerrard McArthur for The Wrestling School, the "Hurts Received" part of the play sees Bach on the sharp end of revenge for a terrible crime. Paralysed and mute, he channels his poetry through a young girl who pours out page after page of "great poetry" to provide the increasingly dependent community with their poetic drug of choice. Only in his stillness, when he no longer has the ability to wound, does his poetry flow.

Tom Riley's dynamic Bach in the first part of the play is in constant movement, whether it is climbing to the hugely oversized chair and desk where he writes, pacing along the decking that defines the acting area, or running his hands frenetically through his hair. This kinetic performance becomes even more startling when in the latter part of the play Bach is paralysed, the stillness even more effective than his earlier frantic searching for words.

Such a bravura performance could have overshadowed the rest of the cast, but Issy Brazier-James makes compelling characters of Sadovee and her sister, with the ensemble providing fine support...