On this page you will be able to read reviews for 'Blue / Orange'. Below this we present previews that appeared in various publications. Where possible, we have linked to the source article.

	A trio of testosterone-powered protagonists. Humourless, earnest Doctor Bruce who is convinced mental health patient Chris is a suicidal danger to society, and smooth consultant Robert, who wants to free up a bed by discharging Chris early. Essentially, to quote Robert, Joe Penhall’s blistering argument of a drama “comes down to semantics”. It’s how the two white medics interpret vulnerable black fantasist Chris’s language and how he sees the world. Chris in turn fails to understand their banter, jokes and the post-colonial prejudices of the noughties. With just a water cooler for company, and some chairs, Danielle Bassett’s set looked like any office meeting room.  Funny, witty and always to the point, director Sam Berger unleashed the cast and let them slug it out to the compulsive, gurgling, bubbling end.  Christopher Tester as Bruce was suitably unspeakable, Colin Dunkley as Chris was unsettlingly convincing as the sectioned patient, and Chris Bianchi enjoyed himself as the suave careerist Robert who had all the best lines and represented all everything that’s wrong in the NHS. (Harry Mottram, Evening Post, 18/09/2008)
	Blue/Orange features just three characters and a barely-there set, but it's a persuasive piece of theatre that relies on superb dialogue and naturalistic performances. Christopher (an utterly believable Colin Dunkley) has been placed in psychiatric care for 28 days under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. It's the day before he's due to leave and his doctor, earnest trainee Bruce (Christopher Tester), is keen to detain him for further assessment. Department head Dr Smith (Chris Bianchi) insists that Christopher, who claims to be the son of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, will become institutionalised. As each doctor's agenda unfolds and Christopher's fantasy becomes increasingly plausible, the play hurtles between questions about mental health policies, ethics, institutionalised racism and whether oranges are indeed orange, or blue. It's a lot to cram in, but Joe Penhall's skilful writing means this never feels didactic. Seven years after it won an Olivier Award, Blue/Orange remains as gripping as ever.
	Bristolians Plain Clothes Theatre, recipients of our Top Play award last year, stuck their neck out somewhat with this follow-up. Joe Penhall's black comedy takes to task modern notions of race and madness, and pettifogging bureaucracy within the NHS: and while it's sharp, witty and often probing in its social critique, it's not, it has to be said, an especially thrilling evening's theatre. Chris (Colin Dunkley) is a young black man nearing the end of a month's incarceration at a London psychiatric hospital, after committing an indiscretion of a delicate nature. Bruce (Christopher Tester), the impassioned young doctor assigned to his case, believes that Chris suffers from schizophrenia, and wants to keep him inside for a while longer. However, Robert (Chris Bianchi), Bruce's privileged, world-weary and pragmatic supervisor, just wants Chris out of the building so as to ease the bed congestion in the hospital. The play asks more interesting questions about insanity, where we measure its parameters and what we do about it - one man's 'danger to himself and others' is clearly another's 'overburdened nervous system' - but this got a little lost among the doctors' endless buraucratuc sparring. Immense credit, though, to all three actors, all completely absorbing and captivating throughout. Dunkley is especially brilliant as Chris, a fizzing, hotwired ball of nervous energy, while Bianchi's Robert, a careerist anxious to remove any hint of trouble from his path, mixes surface charm with implacable hostility to Bruce's insubordinate ways. These three brilliant performances added lustre to an evenings at times more treatise than theatre. (Steve Wright, Venue - No. 836)