Review: The Walrus Has a Right to Adventure at the Liverpool Everyman ****

Wirral writer Billie Collins’ debut play, Too Much World at Once, was a continent spanning metaphorical contemplation of identity and climate change, while in follow up Peak Stuff, toured last year by ThickSkin theatre, multiple characters and stories collided.

Dramatically, The Walrus Has a Right to Adventure, being premiered at the Everyman until Saturday, distils elements of both these storytelling approaches into an imaginative and beguiling piece of theatre in which a trio of lives and a trio of creatures intertwine in mediative – and at times (bleakly) funny – fashion.

Its malleable, three-strong cast take on multiple characters and two distinct physical roles; actor and Foley artist, stepping in and out of the narrative to create a myriad clever sound effects at three cube-shaped consoles.

Chloe Wyn’s set design, echoing the sparse style of storytelling, evokes a sound stage or recording studio, while the long wood baffles which cover the rear wall also give a sense of the natural world.

The action - inspired by real-life wild animal encounters - shifts from Oslo, where an unwelcome passenger (the Walrus of the title) rocks the life of sardonic boat owner Oskar (Reginald Edwards), to Colorado where a devastating encounter with a black bear leads to profound personal questions for Princess Khumalo’s Hazel, to Halewood Tesco where a spiritually symbolic night-time visitor affects shelf stacker Rio (Tasha Dowd) in an unexpectedly elemental way.

Above: Reginald Evans (Oskar), Tasha Dowd (Rio) and Princess Khumalo (Hazel) in The Walrus Has a Right to Adventure. Top: Tasha Dowd adds sound effects. Photos by Ean Flanders.

As the animal and human worlds meet, there are moments of seismic connection which prompt real reflection – but the interactions also unleash less benign, more brutal responses (most of them seemingly testosterone-fuelled).

Director Nathan Crossan-Smith and the cast bring both sympathy and humour to Collins’ segueing stories of which, for me at least, the most emotionally affecting is also the least obviously and outwardly dramatic – Edwards’ solitary seadog compelled by circumstance to confront emotions he has long buried away.

The invigorating dramatic boldness which drives the first half subsides somewhat after the interval, replaced by a more introspective and low-key second act.

While (plot spoiler) there’s not a happy ending for everyone and everything, The Walrus Has a Right to Adventure is ultimately a tale about hope and finding your own place in the world.

And, just as with Tmesis Theatre’s inventive and otherworldly SealSkin which came to the Everyman in 2023, you won’t see anything else quite like it on a stage in Liverpool this year.