Surreal black comedy “worth the ride”
Show: Crocodile Fever
Written by: Meghan Tyler
Presented by: Cambridge Repertory Theatre
Venue: Gaslight Theatre
Dates: 2-16th May
Reviewed by Mike Williams
Tickets https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2026/crocodile-fever/waikato
Crocodile Fever Set in rural Northern Ireland at the tail end of the Troubles in the late 1980s, Crocodile Fever plays out over one long, volatile night inside a family home that appears bright and spotless, but harbours a darkness that can’t be contained.
Alannah has stayed put – dutiful, devout, controlled, obsessive – bound to the task of caring for her abusive, paralysed father. Her fragile routine is violently disrupted when her sister Fianna crashes back into her life: wild, rebellious, and newly released from prison, carrying years of anger.
Fuelled by alcohol, rage, and shared suffering, the reunion spirals into a darkly comic, increasingly grotesque confrontation. Old wounds reopen. The truth about their mother’s death resurfaces. The full weight of their father’s cruelty comes into focus.
As the night spirals, so does the tone – darkly funny one minute, deeply unsettling the next. Reality begins to blur, then dissolve. The sisters, divided for years, find common ground in shared trauma, and that bond pushes them toward a brutal, surreal act of revenge.
A crocodile is mostly invisible until it isn’t. That’s the play’s structure in a nutshell. For a time, things feel tense but contained. Then the submerged truth rises quickly. Family secrets, tyranny, buried trauma – the reality of what happened to their mother – it’s all been sitting just below the surface.
This production is remarkably tight and assured. Jo Bishop nails the repressed, tightly wound Alannah from her first moments on stage. There’s a constant sense she’s close to breaking, and Bishop holds that edge right up to the point where Alannah shifts the dynamic with one shocking move at the close of the first act.
As Fianna, Clare Collins eats up the stage – taunting, cajoling, teasing and abusing her sister in equal measure. Both actors are fully committed, and it’s compelling to watch them go at each other. As the play pushes from bad to worse, from ghastly to surreal, neither lets up.
David Moore plays the abusive and malicious Da, the focal point for years of hurt and anger. It’s fair to say he gets what’s coming to him, and then some. Moore is a solid, capable performer, and the role suits his physicality. I did find myself wanting a little more overt menace, however, to fully justify the extreme vengeance that follows.
Matt Silvester appears late as a British soldier who bursts into the final stages of the play and finds himself in the middle of something entirely unexpected. The character serves as a reminder of the outside world, with its own tensions and pressures. We hear the occasional helicopter earlier, but this moment brings the Troubles directly into the home.
Crocodile Fever is raw, feral, confronting, and deliberately excessive – both in language and action. It won’t be for everyone. The squeamish are unlikely to thank you, and the surreal ending pushes well beyond naturalism. For those who value challenging theatre, though, it’s well worth the ride.
Director Steve McMurray delivers a tense, well-judged production that trusts the text and gives the cast room to fully inhabit their roles. It’s a controlled, confident piece of work. Underneath it all, it’s about what abuse leaves behind – and what it can drive people to do when there’s nowhere left to put it.
