The Visitors is an intriguing play about a heroin addict Danny Strand (James Taylor) who attempts to kick his habit and rekindle his life and try to return to some semblance of normality.
It all happens in one night when Danny is visited by five strangers where past, present and future collide as in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Danny is in a downward spiral and questions how the choices he has made have influenced his world and that of others. Ever present are the needles, the syringe, the drugs as he struggles to resist the temptation to have one more hit.
A knock at the door reveals the first of his visitors, Miss E Payne (Alice Robb), who has the power to inflict pain on him in an attempt to help him. He struggles. His second visitor is Addy (Megan Basnett) wearing a sexy sequined dress who explores his relationship with James, a biology undergraduate and his first gay lover whilst they were at university. She plays the Devil's advocate and tries to persuade him to take the drugs he is trying to give up. She is a temptress and plays on his emotions.
A young six-and-three-quarter-year-old girl Eggs (Emma-Louise Smith) wants to play games and Mrs Comfort (Faith Martin) provides that with pies and cakes and tells Danny stories. Finally, Alison Zrada as Norma makes him aware of the consequences he faces if he follows his present lifestyle. His life is a mess but how does he start to change and will he kick his habit and were these visitation all in his mind?
This is a powerful play performed with passion by accomplished actors from Reading University.