Review: We Were Promised Honey
In August 2018, a Seattle airport worker took an Alaskan Airlines plane for a joyride. The 29-year-old, whose only experience of taking the controls of a plane was when playing with ‘video games,’ flew the plane for over an hour. Having confessed that ‘I wasn't really planning on landing it,’ Richard Russell’s journey, which included a ‘beautifully executed’ barrel roll, ended when the plane crashed into a near deserted island.
We Were Promised Honey is a memorable one-person show that features aspects of Russell’s story, and a soundtrack that includes some of the air traffic control conversations with the ‘pilot for the day’ (Eloise Collins, Sound Designer). But this is not a play that is just about the Seattle Airport incident. Russell’s story is interwoven with the life of a fictitious baby, born in a lighthouse, and of lovers reunited after a long time apart, all set against the backdrop of a dystopian future of a scorched planet ruled by multi-billionaires and giant corporations. As performer Tenielle Plunkett says, ‘The show that we're about to do is a story of the future. The story we're going to tell is the story of us. I'm going to tell you this now: it doesn't have a happy end.’
It’s fair to say that most of us know that our lives are time-limited, as ‘four-score’ is the life expectancy for Australians born in this decade (now 81-85 years). We are also bombarded by dire predictions to how the world will end—whether from nuclear war, climate change, or when the sun swells into a red giant. So we all know that the ‘ending’ is unlikely to be happy. And we can probably all relate to the promise of a life of joy, comfort, and abundance—as suggested by the many references in the bible to a ‘land of milk and honey,’ and the work by most parents to build a better future for their children.
Sam Ward has written a very clever script, where the performer speaks directly to the audience—punctuating each of the acts with ‘choices’ as to whether to continue to listen to the tale, or to just wait for the end of the allocated hour. Raising the spectre of debates around determinism vs free will, Tenielle reminds us that the We Were Promised Honey dialogue is already written. But there is still a sense of immediacy and even improvisation in the performance, thanks to interactions with the audience that includes several willing patrons repeating and even reading, lines from the script. On Friday evening, one of the most memorable moments was the rather awkward dialogue between the reunited former lovers ‘300 years from now,’ that included the line ‘did you ever find what you are looking for?’—beautifully performed by two members of the audience.
Congratulations to Tenielle Plunkett (Performer), Jai Bofinger (Director), and Harrison Allen (Producer) for bringing this production to the PIP Theatre Toucan Club. I hope that Tenielle can reprise this impressive show in other Australian spaces. With a limited number of props that include traffic wands, and a model of an Alaskan Airlines plane, I can see that We Were Promised Honey will work in any intimate performance space. And I am sure it’s a great piece to inspire post-show chat with any philosophy students.
I must admit that I didn’t enjoy every moment of the Friday evening show, as I found some of the ‘flamboyant’ audience laughter a little strange and rather distracting at times—particularly during the later, more emotional moments of the performance. But I guess some of that was because We Were Promised Honey is a show that poses challenging questions—and we all react to life’s challenges in different ways.
We Were Promised Honey is a play that encourages reflection. Even though we all know that our own stories will end, the script encourages audiences to reflect on ‘when stories begin’: at birth, at the chance meeting of our parents, or is it even when the first humans walked on the land? And, before leading the audience in a rather incongruous rendition of the chorus of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads,’ Tenielle/Sam also reminds us all that ‘what choice do we have but to keep going?’ and that ‘tomorrow is a day full of choices.’ As this is a show that features the story of a young man who decided to choose a final hour of joy, before committing suicide, I hope that audience members remember the positive choices they can make during their own lifetimes, and to find moments of joy and connection during their lives.
Audience information: We Were Promised Honey, Toucan Club, PIP Theatre, 20 Park Road, Milton (15 November–5 December 2025). Tickets: $33-$37 (plus $3.30 transaction fee). 65 minutes, no interval. Suggest 18+. The production includes Adult Themes, limited coarse/strong language, reference to suicide and death, flames, and occasional flashing lights.
Additional Credits: Toucan Club Tech Team—Noah Milne (Lighting Designer), Ursula Heesh (Stage Manager), and Cam Cahill (Sound Operator).
The reviewer attended the Friday 5th December 2025 performance (7:00pm).
Picture : Tenielle Plunkett in We Were Promised Honey. Images supplied. NOT a Creative Futures Photography image.