“Bull” at Park Theatre
Maryam Philpott in North London
★★★☆☆
2 October 2026
Mike Bartlett’s nihilistic drama Bull remains an unnerving treatise on the nature of power, the presentation of a Darwinian world that has lost none of its intensity or its depths of human cruelty. Nice guys certainly finish last as Bartlett presents a microcosm of 21st-century society with its focus on personal success and ruling elites with no compassion. Presented by Deafinitely Theatre, this adaptation at the Park Theatre is delivered entirely in British Sign Language (BSL) – plus surtitles – using its more physical form to convey the work’s growing horrors; the players may change but the game remains the same.
Photo credit: Becky Bailey.
Summoned to a meeting room to discuss cutbacks in their corporate team, Tony and Isobel are certain that Thomas will lose his job. Bullying him relentlessly, they comment on his work, his physical appearance, and his personality, knowing they can psyche him out, confident the boss can make only one choice as the colleagues battle for survival.
Directed by Paula Garfield, Deafinitely Theatre’s show draws out two types of people in Bartlett’s work. First, Tony and Isobel who seethe with hatred, oozing entitlement about their position, their background, and their own brilliance that shows no vulnerability. They have an answer for everything, endless avenues to pursue in their persecution of Thomas, two hyped-up, testosterone-fuelled (even Isobel) bullies who enjoy their privilege. But they also have the goods to back it up, and it is their sales success, their ability to fit into and even determine this work culture, bending it to their advantage, which becomes horribly compelling. Danny Lee and Jasmine Whipps play wolfish predators toying with their defenceless prey who is the only thing preventing them from turning on each other.
Thomas is their opposite in every sense, hardly ruthless and unable to be the shark he needs to be for the corporate world to embrace him. Ciaran O’Breen doesn’t make Thomas entirely without fight, however; he hits back, tries to stand up for himself, and frequently refuses to go along with Isobel and Tony’s schemes, but his sallies are too weak to stop the taunts permanently. And this production lulls the audience into a false scent of storytelling security, waiting for the comeuppance that a morality play demands. Garfield’s production holds the line, making the audience wait and wait for justice as Bartlett’s commentary on the unfairness of real life, our inability to overturn the structures that confined us, works itself through.
The production loses that hard-earned tension when David Sands’s Carter appears, a character who here becomes too large, losing the tension that sustained anticipation of his arrival has created. It is too obvious what his decision will be, and this decisive moment is sapped of energy as a result and feeling more caricatured. Here is the point that the audience need to believe that Thomas will be vindicated and rewarded which deepens the impact of the eventual outcome, but without that will he/won’t he dilemma the scene falls flat.
The hefty surtitles are stuttering and gappy, struggling to keep up, yet the BSL performance gives Bull a greater physicality than Bartlett’s spikey text, expanding the comedy with broader gestures, demonstrative actions, or facial expressions that add to the sense of force. As the production unfolds and attitudes towards Thomas harden, the hate also feels more physical as a result, even more unnerving than the dialogue alone might suggest. This Isobel and Tony are aggressively prepared to make good on their talk, adding to the nasty taste that Bartlett’s work leaves behind.
It’s 13 years now since Bull was first performed and the play has aged, certainly in the greater employment protections offered to workers in private sector environments that makes this less credible than it was. Garfield’s approach could make a stronger case for why Bull and why now, but the physicality that BSL offers certainly makes its violence more palpable.
