Theatre Review: Mood Music

Plays about the entertainment industry, broadly defined, are having a bit of a moment. Hot on the heels of the NT’s Network, Chichester’s Quiz (TV) and The Old Vic’s own Fanny and Alexander (theatre) comes their next production: Mood Music (music, obviously).

Mood Music tells the story of a young, new kid on the block (female) musician and an older, successful (male) producer battling over the rights of a hit song they have recorded together. Which of course means by extension it’s about the way women are treated in the music industry, and the wider entertainment industry, and let’s be honest everywhere else. It’s also very funny though so don’t reach for the booze just yet. 

Let’s get something out of the way before launching into the review proper because it’s bugging me: Mood Music is so much like the NT’s production of Nina Raine’s Consent. This is obviously true in some fairly major ways: it shares the same director (Roger Michell), a third of the same cast (Ben Chaplin and Pip Carter) playing broadly comparable characters and the same designer (Hildegard Bechtler). As a result it looks very similar - the selection of microphones hanging over the stage in Mood Music taking the place of the lights in Consent in a particularly striking example - and it feels very similar in its pacing and performance. What is perhaps weirder is that despite having a completely different author, Mood Music is the work of Joe Penhall, and being about, in theory at least, a very different topic - music industry vs justice system - it also sounds very similar. It has the same structure of overlapping conversations and the same punchy style. This isn’t a criticism of either piece really, it’s more of an observation which I’m making purely because it’s probably the thing I’ve been thinking about most since I saw Mood Music. If you’ve seen both it and Consent, I think it’s hard not to notice.

Anyway, that aside I actually really rated Mood Music on its own merits (I also preferred it to Consent, a comparison I will now be parking). Joe Penhall’s writing is great. Horribly, depressingly prescient in its portrayal of the exploitation of (young) women and the way the entertainment industry works it’s also an enjoyably wry, often laugh out loud funny pitch black comedy. I’m not sure it’s quite the biting satire it was perhaps intended to be (though some of that is because real life events have overtaken it in the horror show of #MeToo and associated awfulness) but that didn’t bother me. It’s fantastically entertaining and incredibly watchable, even if through parted fingers at times. The characterisation isn’t amazing, I felt that I was watching archetypes rather than individual characters a lot of the time, but in the context of this piece I actually didn’t mind that too much. I mean, you can laugh as much at the machinations of a lawyer with no personality than you can at one who is a fully realised human being. Well, I can anyway. 

The structure of the play, which I’ve already alluded to, was probably my favourite thing. Without spoiling things too much, the play works as a series of conversations between various combinations the two central characters, their lawyers and their therapists. These conversations overlap so that the story is usually being told from both of the protagonists’ perspectives at the same time. It takes a moment to get your ear in to this, but once you do it works really well and gives a much more rounded version of the story than a more linear structure would have done. It also makes for some fascinating moments watching the actors, who are all on stage at all times to accommodate the structure, who are not involved in the current conversation and what they choose to do. Some seem to try and make themselves disappear, some watch the action as an additional part of the audience and Ben Chaplin largely lounges around as if he owns the place (which he largely does). This is the sort of detailed stuff that I am fucking here for. 

If the play is good fun, the production matches it. Roger Michell’s direction is really top notch: pacy, witty, on top of the action and dialogue at all times. I am at this point even ready to forgive him for Waste which, as regular readers will recognise, is a Big Deal. My only question is whether this piece, with a run time of about 100 minutes, really needs an interval. I’m not convinced it does. Hildegard Bechtler’s design is also fab. So simple, so minimal, but so clever. I loved the lighting especially. I’m not sure, though, how I feel about the conversion of the Old Vic’s auditorium into a thrust stage. It didn’t quite work for me, and sort of felt like someone in the creative team desperately wanted to be in another theatre, or someone in the sales team desperately wanted fewer stalls seats to sell, neither of which are a great look. (I would like to see this piece in a smaller space though, I feel like it would work even better.)

The cast here is great. I’ve mentioned him twice already so it may come as no surprise to learn that Ben Chaplin is my pick of the tiny ensemble (of six). Chaplin is one of those actors who is just endlessly watchable. Dripping with charisma and malice but also hinting at something far more human in his underwritten character, he is a joy in this. I could watch him lolling about in the battered leather chair that is the central prop like some kind of middle aged lion for literally days. I also really enjoyed Pip Carter as his therapist/verbal sparring partner. There is almost nothing to his character, but he gets some great lines and delivers them with perfect timing. After the other show that they were both in that I promised I wouldn’t mention again, it’s so fun to see these two squaring up again. They have great chemistry. Everyone else in the cast delivers too - Seana Kerslake in particular is something of a revelation as the young star, wringing every ounce of strength and vulnerability out of what is actually a very difficult part - and watching them all on stage at the same time is really exciting. 

I really enjoyed Mood Music. It’s great fun, fantastically entertaining and, depressingly, very much a play for our times. It’s really well staged and the cast is a gift. Definitely worth your time. Just maybe don’t see Consent in the same weekend.

Mood Music is at the Old Vic until 16th June.

My seat for Mood Music was L18 in the stalls. I saw a preview and bought my ticket in the PWC £10 Previews promotion. Normally, it would cost £65 (though there are loads of promotions on tickets for this one).