Theatre Review: The Fall

"Do you really think it's that bad, being that old?" is two things: a line in The Fall, the latest production by the National Youth Theatre, and also a question that in the mouths of the brilliant young people who populate this production something I felt as a personal insult as I sat in the theatre, trying to forget how tired I was and that somehow there is still one more workday this week and generally low level questioning my life choices.

I digress.

The Fall, written by James Fritz, was commissioned by the NYT a couple of years ago. It tells the story of one woman at three stages of her life and in three different interactions with older people, the last, inevitably, being when she herself is the older person. All of these interactions end with the older people dead by, in some way, her (lack of) efforts. A cheery piece. 

Flippancy aside, The Fall is a really interesting piece of work. There's a black humour to it that I found really compelling and, as so often, some well judged levity goes a long way to heighten the drama and darker moments too. The drama is strong, tackling issues of loneliness, the housing crisis (again) and most obviously the relationship between young and old in a society where the perception, fairly or otherwise, is that the old have everything and the young nothing. Big topics, and no easy answers offered, but all really well explored. The structure is intelligent too, telling the story in three separate chunks played by different casts. Each chunk is a self contained narrative in and of itself, and the connection between them is only loosely made. But it works as a whole as well as three separate pieces. Judged on writing alone, I think this is probably one of the better pieces of modern theatre I've seen in a while.

The production is equally, though not quite 100% consistently, strong. To explain the caveat briefly, I could happily have lived without the odd dancing that sits incongruously between each chunk of story - it added nothing except a veneer of pretentiousness which sits so oddly with the rest of this stripped back show. There's good stuff going on elsewhere though: in Matt Harrison's breakneck in a good way direction,  in Christopher Hone's extremely minimal but extremely effective design and especially in Christopher Nairne's gorgeously evocative lighting - some of the effects he generates are really quite incredible given the confines of the space.

As always though the joy of an NYT production is the NYT itself. And of all the NYT companies I've seen this is by some way the strongest. The whole cast (of ten) is great and there's the usual fistfuls of energy and general no-fucks-given-ness that I love NYT productions for. But there is also Serious Acting going on here, punctuation intentional. Niyi Akin and Jesse Bateson are positively dripping charisma as Boy and Girl, the first story's painfully naive characters. In story two, Troy Richards and Sophie Couch are even better as One and Two. Couch is probably the pick of the whole show for me, there's such subtlety and control in what is a really difficult part (no spoilers). In the final story I loved Josie Charles as A (the character names are less annoying in context), who gets the full range of emotions to play with and plays with them really well. Keep an eye on these kids, she said patronisingly. They are definitely going places. 

The Fall is by far the best thing I've yet seen the NYT do - a strong, complex play with a kick ass cast and a (largely) really effective production. Also a lovely venue in the Southwark Playhouse, which I'd not been to before but was really taken with (mostly because they let you take your drink in in an actual glass which is so exciting to me). Recommended, company, production and venue.

The Fall by the National Youth Theatre is at the Southwark Playhouse until 19th May.

My seat was B50, I attended press night and my ticket was kindly provided by the NYT. It would normally cost £20. Which is a bargain.

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). 

Theatre Review: Instructions for Correct Assembly

Despite all the theatre I see, I have somehow always managed to avoid The Royal Court. Not particularly by design - although their decision some years ago to stage the new Jez Butterworth they had, starring Dominic West, in their upstairs dining room of a studio space did make me hate them for quite some time - but more because their programming didn’t seem that interesting to me.

The Ferryman rather changed that impression and since seeing that in its West End transfer I’ve been looking for something (that it was possible to get tickets for) to see in the venue itself. Instructions for Correct Assembly is the production I settled on, motivated purely by the desire to see Mark Bonnar - whose gloriously caustic and fucked up character in Channel 4’s sublime Catastrophe is my spirit animal in many ways - on stage. 

Written by Thomas Eccleshare, Instructions tells the story of a couple trying to build their perfect son from a flatpack kit after their imperfect real one dies of a drug overdose. Egged on by a desire to Keep Up With the Joneses with their neighbours, whose overachieving brood their parents are vomit inducingly obsessed with, they are horrified when the robot perfect son turns out to be just as messed up as the real one. Quelle surprise.

There’s no prizes for spotting the point this piece is trying to make: that perfection is impossible, or at least a relative concept, and that the quest for it is damaging for all concerned. And there’s of course absolutely nothing wrong with making that point. It’s entirely valid and completely true. But it’s not as interesting or clever as I think this play thinks it is. It doesn’t really sustain the action for the hour and forty minutes that this production demands, especially as the narrative premise is so out there and the production is so stylised. 

That said, it is an entertaining piece of writing. It’s very well observed and has enormous wit and heart. The scenes of the perfect son being built are really fun; contrasted with the scenes of the breakdown of the relationship between parents and drug addict real son they become something much darker. There are plenty of genuinely laugh out loud moments, such as when the couple are adjusting the settings on perfect son’s political views to suit their own tastes. Rather like an Alan Ayckbourn play though, once you realise what you’re actually laughing at things become something more complex. It’s not a bad play by any means, it’s just not as clever as it thinks it is.

The same goes for the production, and to a much greater degree. There are creative decisions that have been taken here that are just annoying - the what I assume are supposed to be robotic movements (weird jumping around) of the cast to get in and out of scenes is the worst offender. It’s unnecessary and, worse, pretentious in exactly the way that the Royal Court’s detractors claim this theatre always is. The conveyor belt set trick is neat but overused, as is the use of a sort of grey panel with a hole in the middle to frame some of the action. It’s also too long by a good ten minutes. There’s no dramaturg credited in the programme, I feel like there needed to be one. I enjoyed Jack Knowles’ lighting design though and Illusionist (great job) Paul Kieve has done some fantastically fun things in creating a ‘real’ robot out of, I think, bits of genuine robotics and the IRL actor. Again, it’s not a bad production. It’s just not as good as it thinks it is. 

Given what motivated me to see the show in the first place though, I’m relieved to say that the acting is really great and wholly justified the price of my £20 ticket. Mark Bonnar is, thankfully, on top form as dad Harry, dealing equally well with the comedy and sadness in the play. Jane Horrocks is even stronger as mum Max, pleasingly hard edged for a dramatic mother. Pick of the bunch though is Brian Vernell as both robot son Jan and human son Nick. He has a lot of work to do on his double duty but manages to create distinct, complex and sympathetic characters in both guises. I really enjoyed watching him and will definitely look out for him in more stuff. It’s always fun to go to the theatre to see a particular actor but then have another, younger, actor impress you instead. 

So I wasn’t mad about Instructions for Correct Assembly. It’s by no means a bad play or a bad production; if you go just to be entertained for a bit you’re unlikely to be disappointed. The cast is worth seeing, even if the play and the production aren’t quite as strong. I can’t say this show has turned me into a Royal Court devotee (to be honest, I didn’t find it a particularly welcoming or comfortable venue either - and who upholsters theatre seating in fucking leather, the noisiest material known to man?) but neither does it mean I’m swearing off them for good. It’s certainly not a perfect production, which I suppose is entirely appropriate.

Instructions for Correct Assembly runs in the Jerwood Downstairs at The Royal Court until 19th May.

Theatre Review: Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

In the first quarter of 2018, I reckon I’ve willingly and spontaneously participated in more standing ovations than I have in the entire rest of my theatre going life.

I still find them a weird phenomenon. They’re not naturally British, are they? Too showy. And why is clapping better because you’re standing up anyway? IDK. But stand I have, with considerable unease obviously, loads so far this year.

The latest in my series of awkward standing is Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, the incredible musical retelling of the even more incredible real life story of a 16 year old drag queen going to his school prom in a dress. Given the introduction I’ve just given it, it goes without saying that I bloody loved this show and so has pretty much every other critic, blogger and normal human who has seen it as far as I can tell. Which is as it should be. I’m not sure I’d trust anyone who saw this show and didn’t love it.

Jamie is written by Dan Gillespie Sells (him off of The Feeling) and Tom MacRae - based on a BBC3 documentary about the real life Jamie - and they’ve created something really special. This is such an uplifting show that I 100% recommend as a way to restore your faith in humanity, and honestly who doesn’t need that at the moment? The music is great: catchy and memorable (the title song has finally shifted My Shot from Hamilton from my head!), using cleverly varied styles of music for different characters whilst still hanging together as a coherent whole. The music and book together strike exactly the right balance between happy and sad. The tougher scenes - be they of homophobia and other assorted prejudice or the internal struggles of various characters - are genuinely tough, and occasionally unpleasant, to watch. Reality is never shied away from. None of the characters are sugar coated. In fact the characterisation is great, particularly of Jamie and his mum, who are very much and very rightly the lead characters, but also of the supporting characters and even those who you would broadly class as the bad guys (resident school bigot Dean is actually one of the best developed characters of the lot for my money). None of them are one dimensional. As a Yorkshire expat, I also loved how much the writers embrace the Sheffield setting and use Yorkshire dialect. It made me feel at home, even if some of the Sheffield-centric jokes don’t quite travel (I laughed). It’s difficult to imagine a stronger and more defiant fuck you to the ‘the British musical is dead’ brigade than this gem of a show. 

The production is fab as well. Director Jonathan Butterell has delivered some solid gold theatrical magic in this show, which is so finely judged and finely paced it’s almost irritating. Anna Fleischle’s design is so bloody functional and efficient (properties of which I am a huge fan) but also looks wicked and is really effective. I loved the school set in particular and the hiding of the band within the backdrop. Kate Prince has done wonders with the choreography. It’s completely modern but also feels completely classically musical theatre too. And it has so much personality. There are a couple of sight line issues (from where I was sat), owing to the size of the stage I think, but overall this is a cracker of a production to match its cracker of a show.

And then there’s the cast. First of all, can we talk about how diverse they are? Different ages, different levels of professional experience (so many West End debuts are being made, which is always amazing to see but especially in a show of this quality), different races, different religions (a mainstream musical with two girls wearing hijabs shouldn’t be worthy of comment and yet), different body types, fabulous drag queens, the list could go on - and to a man and woman each of them outstanding. It’s incredibly heartening, depressingly worthy of comment, and a real credit to British theatre to see this cast knocking it out of the park on a West End stage. 

The show belongs to its title character though, really. John McCrae is force of nature. I’ve never (or at least exceptionally rarely) seen an actor who owns the stage and the audience as thoroughly as he does, nor an audience react to an actor the way they react to him. He shows astonishing emotional depth, has an incredible voice, moves like Beyoncé and does all of this in gravity defying heels. He’s already been acknowledged as a superstar and rightly so. If he doesn’t win the Olivier then I will riot (quietly). That said, he is run very close for the show by the sublime Josie Walker as his mum. She is phenomenal, probably the best female musical performance I’ve ever seen - and I’ve seen St Imelda a fair few times. She is so fundamentally lovable, so heartbreakingly sad and so utterly kick ass (if you’re a fan, think Carol in The Walking Dead but more northern and packing less heat). Her big solo number is literally show stopping. I also loved Mina Anwar as Ray, providing some perfectly timed comedy and northern soul as Ray. And shout out to the three actors playing the ‘villains’ in the show - I saw Luke Baker (school bully Dean), Rebecca McKinnis (understudy Miss Hedge) and Spencer Stafford (understudy Jamie’s dad) - who have the least fun parts to work with but still produce believeable, redeemable characters. Big love for fab understudies.

This show is just a ray of sunshine in a world that can seem pretty bleak at the moment. It’s genuinely life affirming stuff, a salutary lesson in what diversity really looks like (on stage and in real life) and a cracking advert for British theatre and British musicals. An utter, utter joy.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is at the Apollo Theatre.

My seat was C19 in the stalls (second row, there’s no row A). It was £65 and, sadly, I paid for it. 

Theatre Review: Cathy

Homelessness is one of those issues, isn’t it? You know what I mean. Something that feels so big and complicated and overwhelmingly awful that it can be tempting to put it in the too difficult pile and think about something else.

It’s also one of those issues that’s really not going away. I mean, have you been to like any major UK city, or even not major UK town, recently and not been horrified by the number of people sleeping on the streets (which has doubled since 2010)? And that’s only the immediately visible part of the problem, before hostels, temporary accommodation, shelters and those stuck in the cycle of deceptively cheerily named sofa surfing is factored in. According to Crisis over 59,000 households (not people, households) were accepted as homeless in England last year. If that doesn’t make you angry then you’re either a garbage human being or you don’t understand the problem.

If the latter, then you 100% need to see Cardboard Citizens’ production of Cathy, currently playing at the Soho Theatre. Cathy updates the classic Ken Loach film Cathy Come Home, the inspiration for the majority of the UK’s homelessness laws (which, as a result, are actually quite progressive - in theory). It’s an absolutely bang on exploration of contemporary homelessness that anyone who wants to understand the problem more should see. It’s also a very good play, which helps.

Ali Taylor is the writer tasked with bringing Loach’s work into the 2010s and he’s done a great job. It is clearly impeccably well researched, making for a chillingly believable and almost depressingly everyday story, but more than that it’s full of humanity, anger, sadness, warmth and love. The characterisation is great - it’s full of recognisable (and recognisably distinct, which is important given two of the cast of four play multiple parts) and rounded people and the two lead roles, Cathy and daughter Danielle, are complex and real. It has a lot to say about the intersectionality of issues that affect someone’s chances of being homeless. Class and gender are clearly tackled, but I found the inclusion of nationality and race probably the most interesting. If I have a criticism it’s that the play’s presentation of people in authority positions is a bit too black and white for my taste. This is especially true of the local council staff characters who are pretty flat and complete jobsworths which, in my experience (in my day job I work a lot with council staff, including sometimes on issues to do with homelessness), isn’t entirely fair. Personal experience aside though, I also think it would have been dramatically and politically more interesting to look closer at the impossible situation that local government budget cuts are putting council staff in. No matter how much they care, and in my experience most of them care a lot, they simply have no money to help people in so many cases and I’d have liked to see this idea - which to be fair is alluded to - brought in more explicitly. 

The production is enjoyably low tech. Yes there is video projection but it’s used only to cover set changes, which are done by hand by the cast every time. Lucy Sierra’s DIY set is great - who knew a selection of chairs and a bunch of oversize Jenga blocks could be so adaptive? The Jenga tower which provides so much of the set and is ever present is a great metaphorical touch too; the way it looms over the action at all times a great reminder of how quickly anyone can find themselves in Cathy’s situation. I also really liked the inclusion of verbatim (I assume) interview recordings of real people (I assume) talking about their experiences of homelessness, played with the video over set changes. They were really effective and a great reminder of how real this problem is. 

The cast is great too. First of all, Cardboard Citizens as a concept is amazing and I love them - I’d heard of but not seen the company before and wasn’t really aware of what they did. Now that I am, I’m definitely a fan. I love how unashamedly activist they are too, it’s great to see a company that engages with politics literally as well as through their work. The company Citz have put forward for Cathy, all four of them, is insanely hard working. Cathy Owen is an excellent Cathy (must make getting into character easier!), especially in the quieter moments. Her face conveys a crazy amount of emotion and poignancy. As daughter Danielle, Hayley Wareham brings real complexity and depth; a great mix of typical teenage nonsense and genuine heartbreak. Alex Jones as literally every man in the play is everywhere all the time and somehow still manages to make his (almost universally awful) characters distinct and human. My pick, though, is Amy Loughton as all the other female characters. She gets some of the play’s best writing - especially on race and immigration as a Polish toilet attendant and on empathy as a Welsh bus driver - and totally sells it. I loved watching her and missed her when she wasn’t on stage (which is not often given how many characters she plays).

Cathy is an incredibly powerful, poignant and effecting piece of theatre. It’s an issue play that thoroughly gets and engages with its issue, and isn’t afraid to ask that its audience does the same. And Cardboard Citizens are great too - I’m so glad I finally got a chance to get to know them. 

Cathy is at the Soho Theatre until 14th April, then tours. Check out CitizensDo.com to learn more about Cardboard Citizens’ current work on homelessness. 

My seat was H5. I attended press night and my ticket was kindly provided by the company. It would normally cost £16. 

Theatre Review: Kiss of the Spider Woman

It’s possible I’ve made this observation before, but the Menier Chocolate Factory is one of my favourite theatres in London.

The space is so cool - I love brutalism and concrete so even if it were empty I’d love it - and so adaptable; the programming is so interesting and so consistently well delivered; the restaurant and wine selection - IMPORTANT - is great (and their large wine glass measure is basically a half pint which also helps).

I’ve so far managed to avoid seeing a straight play there though, having up until now only seen a hattrick of musicals. And when I tell you that the latest thing I’ve seen there is Kiss of the Spider Woman you might think that trend was continuing. You’d be wrong, soz.

Based on the classic story by Manuel Puig, in a new dramatic (ie not musical) adaptation by Jose Rivera and Allan Baker, Kiss of the Spider Women (henceforth KOTSW), tells the story of Molina and Valentin, two prisoners in Peronist Argentina. Molina is locked up for his sexuality, Valentin for his politics and they are very much camp chalk and alpha cheese. What follows is a sort of serious Odd Couple, taking in meditations on fantasy, loneliness, oppression and friendship.

Rivera and Baker’s writing has an admirable stab at all of these big old topics and delivers something that is touching, funny and, surprisingly to me at least, enjoyably catty. The humour in what is otherwise a fairly bleak play is really well done and effectively used, both to punctuate and to amplify the otherwise all consuming grimness. There are some great one liners - I would like Molina’s observation that “If I’m not the leading lady I don’t want to be in the play” on a t shirt immediately please. The writing, and indeed the whole production, is at its best during the moments of sheer escapism and fantasy in which Molina describes his favourite films to Valentin. These are beautifully and evocatively written. It’s entirely possible to lose yourself in them.

There was something missing for me though and I’m not honestly sure what it was. If I were to try and describe it, I think momentum is probably the best word. Particularly in the early part of the play, the writing does seem to meander a bit and takes a mite too long to establish where it’s going. Some of the political pronouncements, also largely front loaded in the text, are a bit heavy handed too; a bit David Hare on an off day. It’s by no means a bad piece of writing, at times it’s a really really good one, but I never found it entirely compelling overall.

However, any issue I had with some of the writing was completely overshadowed by how beautifully this production is staged. The use of the space is unbelievable, in that it seems entirely impossible that this is the same theatre that housed Barnum or Into the Woods or Assassins. The transformation is incredible; the American tourists sat next to me were briefly but genuinely concerned that the theatre was structurally unsound because it had been roughed up so convincingly (I promise that’s true).

Jon Bausor’s design is the absolute star of the show, gorgeously bleak. Paul Anderson’s lighting is stark but sympathetic. Philip Pinsky’s music and soundscape is so effective, it’s amazing how much sound can make the same space feel incredibly claustrophobic and utterly free so well. The real gem here, though, is Andrzej Goulding’s incredible projections which are not only technically impressive and visually stunning, they’re genuinely memorable in a way that so much theatre design isn’t. They’re also fully integrated into the production in a way which is so rarely the case when projection is used. Director Laurie Sansom deserves kudos for managing all of this in a way which isn’t overwhelming and keeps the show feeling like a coherent whole. His pacing is good too - and gets better as the show goes on.

KOTSW has three characters - Molina, Valentin and a prison guard - but really it’s Molina’s show and so this production belongs to Samuel Barnett. He’s on top form; wry, sprightly and full of both sassy fun and heartfelt sadness. In particular, his storytelling in the fantasy sections is gorgeous and his scenes with the prison guard where his conflicting motivations (no spoilers) are laid bare are really effectively done. You miss him when he’s not the centre of the action, which fortunately is not that often. As Valentin, Declan Bennett has a tougher time. It’s a less good part, with fewer and less good lines, and he has a hard job keeping up with the sparkling Barnett. The physicality he brings to the role, though, is excellent. The occasional fits he’s required to have are genuinely uncomfortable (and sometimes frightening) to watch. He really effectively, silently, communicates an only just controlled violence and rage which the part definitely requires.

KOTSW isn’t my favourite thing that I’ve ever seen at the Menier, it doesn’t quite have the same all around wow factor of other things I’ve seen there. But for all that it’s still an extremely competent production and the incredible design is 100% worth seeing in the flesh. Well, in the concrete. And if you’re a Samuel Barnett fan, this one’s definitely for you.

Kiss of the Spider Woman is at the Menier Chocolate Factory until 5th May.


My seat was A4. It cost £32.50 and I paid for it. I saw a preview.

Theatre Review: Misty

Honestly, at this point I'm a bit bored of writing reviews that rave about stuff at The Bush Theatre. Like, can't they just do something bad,  or at least indifferent, for a change? They're like that annoying over achieving kid at school who finishes top of the year but is somehow completely chill about it (me, except I don't remember being especially chill about it).

I digress. Their current production is Misty, a play/gig/monologue/poem/balloon extravaganza written by and starring the brilliant Arinzé Kene. It tells two stories simultaneously: that of Kene's creation of the show and, within it (play within a play klaxon) that of Luke, a young black man who has an unfortunate encounter on a nightbus which changes his life. And, annoyingly or otherwise, it's really bloody good.

Let's talk about that structure first of all because it's a bit of a mind fuck. A lot of the 'real' portion of the show is a debate around whether what Kene has written is a typical, "depressing shit", "urban jungle safari", ‘black play’ (sorry, that's a lot of punctuation), designed to help white, middle class people feel like - or pretend - that they understand or care about the experiences of black people. After all, he's written a piece of theatre and who goes to the theatre but middle class white people? And I'll tell you something, as a middle class white person, this was a pretty uncomfortable line of thinking. There were a couple of moments where I physically shrunk into my seat with embarrassment. But Kene doesn't leave this idea unquestioned (thankfully). He forcefully embraces and demands the right to tell his story, in his language, in a theatre. After all, middle class white people get to write about their experiences unquestioned and unremarked upon all the time. Why shouldn't young black men? The dynamics at play between these two ideas are complex, sparky and angry. They make for a compelling and confusing watch.

The play within this is equally thematically rich. Kene imagines London as a living being, made up of blood cells and viruses. But who are the blood cells and who are the viruses? In his judgement, the virus is gentrification and the way it forces traditional communities, for want of a better phrase, out of their homes and replaces them with Starbucks or nice places to have brunch. He makes his argument here all the more compelling by initially presenting it the other way round - that the nice middle class (white) people and their definition of progress are the blood cells -  an argument he demolishes quite beautifully. I loved the line "you create me but now you hate me", which is a more forceful and effective summing up of income inequality than I've heard anywhere else. 

The writing, themes apart, is just really bloody good: punchy, angry, evocative and with a great line in dark, deadpan, sarcastic humour. I would also argue it has a strong case for the best opening line in London at the moment: "A lot of crazy shit happens on the nightbus". I was pretty much sold by that sentence.

Kene the performer is as sensational as Kene the writer. The energy - physical, mental and creative - he brings to the performance is incredible. He's exactly the sort of quadruple threat that this utterly unique show demands: he's a great actor, has an amazing singing voice (that falsetto though!), can rap with a Jay Z-esque swagger and has the physicality to successfully extricate himself into a wetsuit at speed and out of an inflated then deflated balloon. No, really. I could watch him for days. 

A word of praise too for the design of this production which is, there's no other word for it, sexy. Sexy as hell. The brutalist vision of London it conjures up (via, essentially, one wall and one screen) is stunning and Jackie Shemesh's lighting design is just amazing. The use of shadows is incredible. I would very much like my life to be lit like this. Daniel Denton's video design is also great, effectively used and weirdly beautiful. Omar Elarian;s direction feels basically non-existent and really lets the piece breathe, which is what something like this desperately needs to work. 

Misty is yet another fearless commission from The Bush which has totally paid off and Arinzé Kene is an absolute superstar. I may not have found Misty a comfortable watch, but then that's the whole point. To quote my absolute favourite line from the whole piece: "If audiences don't want to be challenged they shouldn't come to the theatre." Long may the Bush, and Kene, keep challenging.

Misty plays at The Bush Theatre until 21st April.

My seat was C10, front and (slightly off) centre. I attended press night and my ticket was kindly provided by The Bush. It would normally cost £20.