A Slow Fire, Simon Stephens’s play about two men waiting out an unnamed catastrophe in a locked bunker, has reached the Jermyn Street Theatre after a first run with Dublin’s Glass Mask company — and the critics have come up out of that basement into very different daylight. Almost every one of them admires the playing: Ross Gaynor and Ian Toner as the two survivors, Fionn Ó Loingsigh as the stranger who arrives with a gun and a generator, and Holly Demaine for a single scorching monologue. Almost every one of them also notes how little Rex Ryan’s production will explain about the world outside. Where the notices part company is on whether that withholding is the play’s discipline or its evasion — and the split is unusually wide, with one four-star rave sitting alongside five two-star verdicts.
The verdict: eleven reviews in so far — one four-star notice, three three-star and five two-star, with Theatre Weekly and The Stage publishing no rating at all. Among the nine that do score it the average is 2.6 out of 5, which makes this the most sharply divided set of notices in London this month. The one point of agreement is the acting: not a single critic in this roundup has a word against the three performances.
What are critics saying about A SLOW FIRE?
All That Dazzles
Reviewer: Molly Gulvin
“Simon Stephens has a list of writing credits that is applause-worthy within itself, so it is unsurprising that this work demonstrates true excellence in its writing. From its first words, the more intricate approach to the post-apocalyptic genre is evident, and this approach is consistent until the very end. By about halfway through the first act, I was moved to tears by the raw emotion that the dialogue evokes, particularly in one of Ashton’s ‘moments’ where he is speaking to his dying mother.”
The Guardian
“Hope flickers in Simon Stephens’ postapocalyptic bunker drama”
Reviewer: Arifa Akbar
“There are some arresting moments and both actors give strong performances. Sometimes, their role-play turns desolate; at others, they tenderly savour a past memory with gentle humour (that occasionally lacks bite). A third man, Presley (Fionn Ó Loingsigh), and a surprise character, Mary (Holly Demaine), enter this space, the latter bringing a powerful monologue full of shock and horror at what has happened outside, spoken almost in a single breath.”
Time Out
“Imaginative but messy post-apocalyptic drama from Simon Stephens”
Reviewer: Holly O’Mahony
“‘Trapped in a bunker’ is a convenient scenario for a play, not least because it negates the problem of tricky set changes, and ‘there’s an apocalypse outside’ is an obvious ploy to drive characters into said bunker – which is to say that we’ve seen this set up before. But Stephens really gets the cogs whirring over what any of us might do under similar circumstances.”
theartsdesk
“Smouldering post-apocalyptical drama”
Reviewer: Gary Naylor
“Simon Stephens’ new play, in London after a run in Dublin, is an intensive two hours that could be even more intensive if director, Rex Ryan, were to cut 15 minutes from a first half that slightly outstays its welcome. It’s the kind of dystopian parable that requires strong performances to find the charm in the characters that eases the horrors we witness.”
The Standard
“Ashes to ashes, guff to guff”
Reviewer: Nick Curtis
“I am normally a huge fan of Stephens, and there is fine writing here, especially in a single speech that marks the major, jack-in-the-box surprise of Ryan’s production (a second surprise can be seen coming a mile off). But there is also a sense of archness and artificiality to the dialogue and the plot, such as it is – of random elements thrown in to trip the audience up again.”
The Reviews Hub
“Spluttering”
Reviewer: Richard Maguire
“While it’s a coup for Jermyn Street Theatre to land Simon Stephens’ new play after a short run in Dublin earlier in the year, it’s a shame that A Slow Fire is no Motortown or Sea Wall. This overlong and talky play set in a post-apocalyptic world feels very minor Stephens indeed.”
London Box Office
Reviewer: Stuart King
“The sequence of patchy vignettes — the end to each of which is signified by a black-out — never quite coalesces into a satisfying or revealing whole. And the several revelations neither reflect well on the characters’ pasts, nor suggest a bright future for those who remain. Ultimately, too many questions were left unanswered or wrapped in obfuscation and I felt a gradual disengagement from the material.”
Theatre and Tonic
Reviewer: Penny Walshe
“I wanted to love A Slow Fire, having loved everything I’ve seen previously at the Jermyn Street Theatre. Maybe I took it all too literally, maybe this type of play just isn’t for me. Some people may have loved it, but for me the fire burnt out extremely quickly.”
West End Best Friend
Reviewer: A.M.H.
“There is no shortage of ambition here. A Slow Fire raises important questions about climate change, war, survival and what humanity might look like when the structures we rely on disappear. These are conversations worth having, particularly in the world we find ourselves living in now. But for a play with so much to say, it doesn’t always give us enough reason to feel.”
Theatre Weekly
“The play is a richly atmospheric thriller”
Reviewer: Ke Meng
“Reece and Ashton hold each other tightly at the end of the play. Maybe the faint flicker of hope lies in male connection, in their friendship? Stephens leaves the answer vague. Together with Andrew Clancy’s design and Jess Fitzsimons Kane’s lighting, the play is a richly atmospheric thriller, but I found myself wishing that its exploration of hope were a little more profound and thought provoking.”
Production photographs by Alex Brenner.
Also reviewed by: The Stage (“Poignant story about the struggle to remain hopeful in the face of civilisational collapse”), whose review sits behind a paywall, so neither its rating nor its reviewer could be read.
For more of what the critics have made of this summer’s openings, our recent roundups cover As You Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe and Who Killed Marilyn? at the Emerald Theatre.
A Slow Fire is booking at the Jermyn Street Theatre until 26 September 2026.
