Deafinitely Theatre presents Bull at Birmingham Rep this week - a tense, emotive, dark comedy in a cutthroat business setting, where power is wielded by those who can manipulate language to get what they want.

Written by Mike Bartlett, the play has been adapted to be performed by four deaf actors, using British Sign Language (BSL), with creative captions which display the play text. The plot centres around Thomas, played by Ciaran O’Breen, who is joined by two colleagues, Tony (Danny Lee) and Isobel (Jasmine Whipps) to await redundancy decisions - a third of the company’s employees are due to be ‘culled’, according to their boss, Carter (David Sands). 

The first 40 minutes of the 85-minute production are spent in a waiting room, as Isobel and Tony torment and bully Thomas - unsettling him to ensure that he will be the one whose job is axed. By the time Carter arrives, the tension has been wound so high that Thomas is a wreck, and his colleagues simply prod him into pitfall after pitfall. 

The play is a dark comedy, with the office politics magnified to extreme and ludicrous levels. Danny Lee and Jasmine Whipps offer performances which reveal glimpses of pure malice beneath their office-appropriate personas. Thomas is out of his depth, but in desperate bids for popularity is willing to sink to their level and engage in the cruel banter which, like the rest of the play, is magnified. All of the performers show a skill for comic delivery which balances the venom the characters spit at each other.

Ciaran O’Breen’s skill as a performer lies in his physicality, and the most effective visual moments of the play are those when the pressure gets too much for Thomas, and O’Breen blends physical theatre and BSL to manifest the character’s emotions through his movements - assisted by Lighting Design by Jessie Addinall and Sound Design by Ellie Isherwood. 

The rest of the play is surprisingly static, and although the tension comes from the performances and interactions between the characters, the other main visual element - the creative captioning - is quite detached from the action. As Bartlett’s play is ‘wordy’, the captioning at times distracts from the actors' performances. Audience members who are only watching the BSL dialogue may be able to become entirely absorbed in the performances, but anyone who needs to glance up at the captions regularly is liable to miss subtle moments. 

The play is fast-paced, tense and darkly funny at times, amping up to a climax full of rage against vicious bullies and the corporate rat race - Bull has proved to be an intriguing beast for Deafinitely Theatre to tackle.

Three Stars

Bull was reviewed on Tuesday 15 September by Jessica Clixby at The Rep, where it shows until Saturday 19 September