Camden Fringe 2025: Doomsday Baby at Theatro Technis
Set entirely within the claustrophobic confines of a bunker, Jacqueline Tooley’s Doomsday Baby introduces us to Eve (Jodyanne Fletcher Richardson) and her son Adam (Joshua Horshall), who turns 18 as the story begins. Their names – Adam and Eve – carry biblical overtones that hang heavily in the air, casting a haunting irony over their story, which unfolds not at the dawn of creation, but in the shadow of a world undone.
The doomsday at the play’s centre is linked to climate disaster, yet remains deliberately ambiguous, keeping the focus firmly on the psychological fallout within the bunker rather than the calamity beyond. Richardson’s Eve brims with restless tension. Her nervous energy crackles through jumpy exclamations, sudden gasps and a near-manic insistence on placating Adam. Yet beneath the surface, maternal warmth lies an obsessive grasp for control and reassurance. Her portrayal navigates the precarious line between tenderness and menace as protective instinct curdles into claustrophobic codependency. Horshall’s Adam embodies an unsettling ordinariness, his maturity shaped not by years but by circumstance, forced to come of age in a space fundamentally hostile to growth.
The set design perfectly captures this tension: sparse yet suffocating, with a sleeping bag unfurled at the edge of the stage, a dining table meticulously set and glimpses of a bathroom and kitchen just beyond view. The spatial dynamics are used to great effect, especially in moments like Adam’s precarious climb onto a chair to shout towards what may be vents or windows, emphasising their liminal existence – trapped underground but yearning for whatever is above.
As Doomsday Baby plunges further into taboo territory and the seemingly innocent “Baby” in the title slowly reveals itself as a horror that ultimately eclipses the doomsday itself, the play transcends its apocalyptic setting to emerge as a chilling and thoroughly original psychological horror, unearthing uncomfortable ideas about survival, autonomy and codependency.
Christina Yang
Photo: Courtesy of Doomsday Baby
Doomsday Baby is at Theatro Technis from 6th until 8th August 2025. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.
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