FIVE BEST LONDON SHOWS - TIMES
FIVE BEST PLAYS NATIONWIDE - INDEPENDENT
 

A strong well-written comedy... Harsher and darker than any (Ayckbourn) has written...Betts' eye for interesting human detail and awkward family situation is sharp...has a toughness and energy that are very much Betts's...we may have, not a new Ayckbourn, but Ayckbourn's successor.
BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE, THE TIMES
 

...a brilliant orchestrator of pain... Betts's outstanding ability...magnificent... a superb dissonant harmony...
ALFRED HICKLING, THE GUARDIAN (North)
 

Torben Betts gets about...A bleakly comic vision...Betts has a sharp ear for the bruising banalities of family life...very funny...He writes with naturalistic exactness...
MICHAEL BILLINGTON, THE GUARDIAN (South)
 

...one of the grimmest and most realistic domestic tragicomedies I've seen...an unforgiving but humane play...the accuracy of the writing keeps you on board, watching the clock as if you were family.
JOHN PETER, THE SUNDAY TIMES
 

Betts has a sharp ear for the casual insensitivity of family banter...a pitch-black comedy...sharply-observed...
PAUL TAYLOR, THE INDEPENDENT
 

...Greek tragedy remade for a modern audience...thoughtful and edgy... a major playwriting discovery...
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE & SPECTATOR
 

...excellently written...unobtrusively skilful...
FINANCIAL TIMES
 

...Betts's unhurried, unsparing vision of everyday hell is quietly compelling.
DOMINIC CAVENDISH, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
 

...Betts devastatingly captures the agonies of awkward conversations.
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
 

A superb play.
SCARBOROUGH EVENING NEWS
 

...hilarious...beautifully-staged...a breakthrough for director Sam Walters...
WHAT'S ON IN LONDON
 

...wonderfully funny moments...strong...very dramatic...extremely moving...
RICHMOND AND TWICKENHAM TIMES
 

...as bleakly comic as Galton and Simpson but with the final lemon twist of Harold Pinter.
YORKSHIRE EVENING PRESS
 

...sad and grimly funny...one of the best three thirty-something playwrights...highly entertaining... extremely funny set pieces...
COUNTRY LIFE
 

Betts is a dab hand at depicting the agonies of one person trying over-enthusiastically to whip up a celebratory atmosphere...
TIME OUT
 

...excruciatingly funny and pitifully painful...a delicious piece of play-making with a vicious ending...bravo for Betts. The season is off to a flying start in Scarborough...
TELETEXT
 

...well-observed uncertainty and anguish...
THE STAGE
 

...a black comedy with bite...an engrossing and unexpectedly poignant play...Betts has a perceptive ear for dialogue allied to an expansive understanding of human nature...his vision, both darkly comic and pervasively sad, is realised with admirable aplomb.
THE GREEN MAGAZINE