REVIEW: A Mirror

You enter Belvoir Upstairs and are handed a wedding program.

White draping frames an arch. A dance floor sits centre stage like a modest function centre awaiting speeches and champagne. Two actors wait on stage as guests arrive, groom and best man in place. It feels charming. Festive. Harmless.

It is also a cover.

In Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror, the wedding is camouflage. In this dystopian world, gatherings must be disguised to avoid detection by a regime that monitors art, culture and expression. The celebration is not a celebration at all. It is a secret attempt to stage a play beneath the gaze of a fascist government.

The tension hums from the beginning. Scenes are repeatedly interrupted as the actors pause to listen for the lookout’s car horn. Conversations freeze mid sentence. Bodies stiffen. Breath is held. The threat of discovery is constant. Art here is not indulgence. It is danger.

Directed with razor sharp control by Margaret Thanos, the cast perform with extraordinary focus and gravity. The play is sobering. Terrifying. At times shocking. It is a chilling meditation on what can happen when government oversight becomes government control, when the arts are monitored, reshaped and sanitised to serve power.

Adem, a mechanic who has written a play, is summoned by arts bureaucrat Čelik, who believes he has potential if only he can learn to write in a state approved, patriotic way.Alongside assistant Mei and celebrated national playwright Bax, he is coached in how to produce work fit for the national stage. The satire is intelligent and biting. Theatre, politics, war and ego are skewered with precision.

Yet it was a quieter moment that unsettled me most.

At one point we were instructed to turn over our wedding programs and recite what was printed on the back. A pledge. A prescribed statement. I could not bring myself to read it aloud. Around me, the audience did so enthusiastically, laughing, joining in, performing as instructed simply because they were told to. It was participatory. It was clever. It was funny.

And it sent goosebumps down my arms.

All I could think was, what if this were real? How easily we complied. How quickly the room unified in repetition. It did not feel playful. It felt plausible. That moment, a genius directorial choice, crystallised the play’s warning. The line between theatre and reality suddenly felt perilously thin.

The performances throughout are incredibly sharp. Dialogue is delivered with clarity and urgency. Comic beats land cleanly before curdling into something darker. Theatrical guns, references to torture and execution, and flashes of violence are handled with restraint, which only amplifies their impact. The soundscape builds unease beneath the surface, while lighting precisely sections each beat, guiding us through layers of performance and deception.

The wedding setting becomes increasingly loaded. The draped arch and dance floor, initially

inviting, begin to feel provisional and exposed. The space never quite settles into celebration. Everything feels as though it could be dismantled at any moment.

At 1 hour and 55 minutes without interval, the production never loosens its grip. You are

absorbed the entire way through.

The ending is harrowing. Not sensational, but deeply disturbing in its implications. The mirror turns outward. Are we truly free as artists to express exact political views and opinions? Is the world safe for work that challenges authority? Or are we only comfortable because we have not yet been told otherwise?

I left feeling uneasy. Quietly shaken.

A Mirror is not just clever theatre. It is a stark reminder of how fragile artistic freedom can be. In an era where culture and politics increasingly collide, its questions feel uncomfortably close to home.

Belvoir has delivered a production that is intellectually rigorous, impeccably directed and genuinely confronting.

You will not leave untouched.

Click here for tickets! Catch A Mirror now until the 22nd March at Belvoir St Theatre.

4 out of 5 Stars