The Dog Walker

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Production photos by Robert Workman

Set and Costume Design for New Writing | Jermyn Street Theatre

Directed by Harry Burton
Written by Paul Minx
Lighting Design by Tom Turner
Sound Design by Fergus O’Hare

Cast: Victoria Yeats, Andrew Dennis

Set in a New York railroad apartment, writer Keri has suffered the loss of her daughter and has since locked herself away in her rubbish-filled flat, only communicating with the outside world through her window. After her dog has died, Keri spirals and an unlikely friendship grows between her and her dog walker Herbert who is also coming to terms with his own personal battle with alcoholism and the break-up of his marriage.

This production used the structure of railroad apartments, layering of bright joyful colours to contradict the dark humour of the piece. There was a lot of detail in the design allowing the very intimate audience a view of Keri’s life- childhood art, books, bottles of Ouzo, dead plants, flies & bin liners.

“She lives within the confines of her tawdry 5th-floor apartment on West 49th Street, which designer Isabella Van Braeckel has managed to make look cramped but somehow more spacious than the actual confines of the tiny Jermyn Street stage, by giving the impression the alcove to the theatre toilets leads to Keri’s kitchen and creating a window with a ladder outside, where Keri spends much time sitting and gazing out, at the edge of her set, searching for a ghost of a girl that haunts her. The floor is a depository for takeaway bags and the shelves house photos of past lovers and dead pets. Empty bottles of booze litter every surface. It’s a carefully crafted insight into its occupant’s mind. Keri is clearly not well.”

Emily Jupp, emilyjupp UK

“Isabella Van Braeckel’s design is detailed and very realistic; the turmoil in Keri’s mind is reflected in her apartment, littered with empty bottles, dirty plates and dead plants. […] Great design”

Aliya Al-Hassan, Broadway World

“Isabella van Braeckel’s set looks like a domestic variant of Tracy Emin’s bed—even the condoms make an appearance, blown into balloons which festoon Keri’s ‘Welcome Home’ banner for her dead daughter. Keri’s apartment is a filthy mess: a tumbledown jumble of hard-bound tomes, children’s toys, dying pot plants, ouzo bottles, ashtrays, pill packets and dirty clothes. There’s a baseball bat under the pillow. Psychological trauma made manifest.”

Claire Seymour, British Theatre Guide

“Another tour de force is the team of Isabella Van Braeckel (set and costume design) and Tom Turner (lighting). It ain’t easy make believing that Keri can look out of her window and shout down to her mum, floors below, when you’re already in a basement theatre, yet Turner cracks it with the lighting. And the set design, describing a flat only marginally more messy than home sweet home, is chaotic and comforting in a way Tracy Emin must once have found her famous bed.”

Chris Parsons, London at Large

“[…] as often at the Jermyn Street where space challenges designers, an extremely effective set by Isabella Van Braeckel – one can be dazzled by what is done in money no object theatres but very often it isn’t in the smaller houses like this something really special happens”

Reviews Gate