REVIEW: Intrusion, Locked In Thought Theatre Company, EdFringe 2025 ★★★

Intrusion is a well-done crime thriller in the style of a classic British TV drama performed by Locked In Thought Theatre Company, a brand new Scottish company. The set up promises an interruption to a couple’s perfect future and doesn’t take long to become a dark, gripping and psychological experience.

An intruder enters the home of Johnathan (James Cumming) and Mia (Katrina Hamilton Smith), a couple whose happiest milestone moments are just beginning. The intruder, Sam (Rory McColl), who claims to be the son of Jonathan refuses to leave the home until he manages to convince Jonathan’s new fiancé Mia of his ugly past- namely, a past that involves Sam’s late mother and an assault that we learn about fairly early on.

The piece is seamless from the start; a ring attached to a breadstick suddenly shoots across the stage in a tightly packaged ring-choke moment. Director Grace Louise has guided the production effectively to be successfully sleek weaving together naturalism and moments of suspense, and writer James Cummings has found a sweet spot in creating a fifty minute play out of a drama that could be a six-part series, without it feeling too short. The hyperrealistic performances help to ground this piece of work so that it levels the heightened drama in the latter half of the play. A standout performance is given by McColl who delivered the perfect boyish intensity that ultimately lifted the drama.

The work has a lot of potential but while the show alludes to create a discussion around consent, it struggles to reach this point as its plot focuses heavily on revenge rather than creating the foundations for any nuanced discussion on sexual assault. The company’s choice to mould the story around two male characters that by the show’s end both commit violence against women unfortunately de-centers the victims’ voices and loses the potential for an insightful male-led conversation.

When we do finally get a moment of reflection on sexual assault at the play’s end, the character arcs have tragically discredited both male voices. Sam, the character that has a very clear intention to prove a point has lost his morality within the events leading up to this discussion which creates a barrier to Johnathan truly recognising the assault amid the plot’s devastating consequences, and to its detriment we fail to explore the ways in which assault can be misunderstood. Ultimately, the plot got in the way of the victim introduced in the first half of the story. Opening up more context on the assault for the audience to consider and question, hearing the words of the victim through the text messages or diary presented in the piece, or even making alternative plot choices would have made space for the right conversations.

The company should be commended on attempting to have this important discussion and for creating a great drama with polished moving pieces. The performances are superb and the production is of a very high quality. For a debut piece of theatre, Intrusion is an impressive feat.

Performances of Intrusion have now concluded at EdFringe 2025.