East of Adelaide

Bottled Out

East of Adelaide

by Julia Thurston

Threedumb Theatre at Arches Lane Theatre, Battersea Power Station until 6^thDecember

Review by Denis Valentine

Threedumb Theatre and its writer Julia Thurston are back after their last award-winning piece Paved with Gold and Ashes, with East Of Adelaide. With a personal touch and generational link to Thurston, the story tries to uncover and look into the lifetimes of three women in the mid 1800s and how a relationship with one man, Henry Bottle, affected their lives.

Each of the three women play their part well and capture how and why their characters fell for Bottle and why, he in turn, fell for them. Aimee Hislop expresses the frustration of a first wife, older than her husband and approaching ‘spinster age’, but then abandoned for years. The play displays this well, as Elizabeth is central to early proceedings but then she has to contend with more odd interjections whenever Bottle decides to call on her.

Charlie Henson’s Emily is a woman working her way through life and meeting someone who she thinks is a suitable, loving partner, only for it all to be a lie. Henson fully expresses the bottled up anger, frustration and resentment that such an arrangement would lead to and the way her and Bottle’s initial character chemistry whittles away to resentment.

Stephen Smith does a great turn as Bottle. His character appears charming at first, which is how he manages to seduce each of his three wives, and in this case also the audience, whilst slowly the façade drops and his more nefarious ways manifest. Smith captures this well and portrays his at first seemingly naive charm, before growing more and more suitably monstrous in demeanour and delivery.

The overlapping times can become quite difficult to keep up with as the years seemingly jump back and forth. Each time change is briefly shown on a projector at the beginning of each scene and it may have worked better to keep the year shown, as then at least the audience could have keep checking in on when the scene is taking place.

Thurston examines the expectations for women of the day and it is clear what confines and hopes each has. The show is also bold enough to contain music and singing numbers which help create the spirit of the time.

The play ends on a powerful note (which will not be spoilt here) but addresses the thought that, although primarily looking to tell the tales of the three women and their lives, they are still dominated and navigated around by the actions of one man. Everything the audience sees and knows about them is due to their dealings and relationships with him and the history and stories about them outside of this are sparse and fleeting.

The production is still in early form, but with the prior to press night performance there is clearly much potential in the piece. With some refinement and slightly different methods in some of its delivery Thurston and Threedumb should have another hit piece.

Denis Valentine, November 2025

Photography courtesy of Threedumb Theatre