It’s a Mystery why Witness For The Prosecution is a Success. Here are the Clues
★★★
Witness For The Prosecution at County Hall. Photo: Pamela Raith
It’s been on since 2017 but somehow I never quite got round to seeing Witness For The Prosecution. To be honest, there was a little bit of prejudice involved. Partly, much as I enjoy an Agatha Christie novel, I have seen her plays before and found them a little stilted. Secondly, it seemed a bit gimmicky to be presenting the play in the old County Hall. The mystery is, it works. So, I’ve engaged my little grey cells and I think I’ve solved the mystery of why it’s a success.
The first clue is the venue. County Hall, near Waterloo, and by the Thames, is a magnificent building. It was the home of the old London Council. Just entering is a stunning experience. The auditorium for Witness For The Prosecution is the former debating chamber. Consequently, it has very comfortable seating, with a terrific view- you wouldn’t expect anything less for the politicians running the capital city. It’s almost worth going to see the play just to sit in the chamber.
Although you can regard setting the play there as a gimmick, it may be more generous to call it ‘site specific’. The important thing is, it works. That’s partly because the auditorium has the grandeur you associate with the Old Bailey, where most of the play is set, and partly because the layout of the chamber with two sides facing one another matches the adversarial nature of a court case, which is the main subject of the play.
Then there’s the play itself. It starts with a scene in the chambers of a defence barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts. This seems to confirm your worst fears. In 1953, when Agatha Christie wrote Witness For The Prosecution, theatre was changing- it’s the same year that Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot premiered, and three years before John Osborne‘s ‘kitchen sink’ drama Look Back In Anger opened- both of which are being revived in the West End this year, by the way. But the style of this play looks backward rather than forward. The people are middle class, and everyone speaks as they ought to, rather than as they would. The dialogue is like any standard so-called ‘drawing room’ play- or film- from the early part of the century.
Then, we are taken to the criminal court. The place where to this day, they still behave like people from the 1950s, or 1850s even.
The clue here as to why Witness of The Prosecution is a success against the odds is in the talent of the creators of this production, director Lucy Bailey and designer William Dudley, to see the potential for this old building as a setting for a play mainly taking place in a courtroom. Chris Davey’s lighting is pretty impressive too- emphasising drama and contrast.
And the final clue: Agatha Christie herself. Now her characters may be ciphers, in the sense that they exist purely in the service of the twisty legal drama and don’t have a lot of depth, but the plot is grippingly good. It’s not just a clever story full of mystery and twists (although it is) but it’s also supplied with a lot of realistic detail. Ms Christie studied many court cases and had the help of a barrister to make sure the legal details are accurate.
George Jones and Meghan Treadway in Witness For The Prosecution. Photo: Pamela Raith
That helps a lot. But so does her story. We begin with Leonard Vole, a handsome cockerney lad accused of murder. He protests his innocence and we believe him but he is clearly too honest and too naive for his own good. The cast changes every so often but currently George Jones plays him with conviction – sorry, that’s probably an inappropriate word, better to say, ‘convincingly’. Leonard had befriended an older well-off woman who was found dead one evening not long after he had visited her, and it turns out she’s left him her fortune.
It’s a challenge to defend him but Sir Wilfrid, with humour and a degree of arrogant self confidence, decides to take on the case. Oliver Boot nails the role and dominates the stage, as he should. Sir Wilfrid and Leonard’s concerned solicitor Mr Mayhew, played by Ewen Cummins, subsequently discuss the case with condescension, patronising humour, and a dash of misogyny.
And the case goes well. A benign and predictably stuffy judge Mr Justice Wainwright is played by David Killick with authority and a twinkle in his eye, as he watches Sir Wilfrid run rings around the exasperated prosecution lawyer Mr Myers, played by Gyuri Sarossy who keeps bouncing back like a punch drunk fighter. He destroys witness after witness including the forensic scientist Dr Wyatt played by Nicholas Chambers, and the vindictive housekeeper Janet MacKenzie, given an scene stealing turn by Veronica Roberts. Finally, Leonard’s wife appears as a witness for the prosecution and, under oath to tell the truth, demolishes Leonard’s alibi. It’s a bravura performance by Meghan Treadway.
Why has she done this? The second act reveals all. And you realise as twist follows twist just how much Ms Christie has misled you, maybe even taken advantage of your expectations of a traditional ‘drawing room’ play. You see that, dammit, just like the people who meet her character Miss Marple, you’ve underestimated the Queen of Crime.
It turns out to be a very satisfactory evening, well put together, well acted and well produced in a striking venue. Mystery solved.
Witness For The Prosecution can be seen at the County Hall in London for the foreseeable future.
Imelda Staunton and the cast of Hello, Dolly! Photo: Manuel Harlan
It’s a legendary show from the Golden Age of Musicals. It’s one of the most successful shows of all time in terms of awards and performances. Yet (whisper it) Hello, Dolly! isn’t very good. Michael Stewart‘s book comprises a ludicrous plot and is saved only by the amusing machinations of its main character. Jerry Herman contributed hardly any memorable songs except the title number and Dolly’s other great song Before The Parade Passes By. Worse, the score also features the execrable It Only Takes A Moment.
Its greatness lies in two redeeming features: the opportunity to put on magnificent chorus numbers, like Put On Your Sunday Clothes (which I admit has a nice hook) and the title number; and providing a vehicle for a female musical star to shine. Fortunately, if a production can get those right, that’s all it needs. And this new production, directed by Dominic Cooke who was responsible for the National Theatre’s legendary Follies, does get it right.
For a start, it is a sumptuous production in the great tradition of the Golden Age. The large London Palladium stage is not only packed with people, it is filled with Rae Smith‘s set and costumes that conjure up the glamour of the end of the nineteenth century. Among its delights are a conveyor that stretches the width of the stage and creates even more movement, a full-size train that is jaw-dropping in its execution, and an enormous staircase to accommodate the arrival of Dolly for her big number.
The choreography was originally by Gower Champion, who wowed Broadway and gets a credit to this day. Bill Deamer is named as choreographer of this production, and his chorus numbers are magnificent in their scale, co-ordination and vitality. There are something like three dozen members of the company but, in case you’re wondering, there’s not much opportunity for individual brilliance on the dance floor.
Imelda Staunton in Hello, Dolly! Photo: Manuel Harlan
Then there’s the star. Carol Channing first played Dolly, the matchmaker and all-round entrepreneur, to massive acclaim. Since then, many top musical stars have added it to their cv, including Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Pearl Bailey, Bernadette Peters and of course Barbra Streisand in the film version. Can any have bettered Imelda Staunton? I don’t see how. She has a great voice that hits the back of the circle when it needs to, but also an ability to plumb a depth of pathos you didn’t even realise was there in a potboiler song like Before The Parade Passes By. Plus she injects the whole proceedings with a level of energy that could single-handedly power the government’s new Great British Energy company.
Fans of her film and television work would probably have no idea of her ability as a singer, but she has played the Baker’s Wife in Into The Woods, Miss Adelaide in Guys And Dolls, Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Sally in Follies, Gypsy Rose in Gypsy, and now Dolly Levi. All triumphantly. Only Mame remains before she has a full house of the great musical roles for mature women.
She is supported by a strong cast but the characters don’t give them much to get their teeth into. In fact, the term ‘character’ may qualify as misinformation. Andy Nyman is an excellent actor but as Dolly’s prospective husband, the rich but miserable Horace Vandergelder, he has little to do except be irascible while his suitor draws him into her web. The same goes for Jenna Russell as Irene Molloy, Dolly’s friend who has her own romantic ambitions: she does what she does very well but she hasn’t much to do. Irene’s romantic interest Cornelius Hackl is a traditional (for which read ‘cliché’) ‘juvenile lead’, with little to do except look pretty and behave cheekily. Harry Hepple handles the role well. Their friends Minnie Fay and Barnaby Tucker are supposed to be the comical parts but remain resolutely unfunny despite the Olympian efforts of Emily Lane and Tyrone Huntley.
With due respect to all of company and creative team, the evening belongs to Imelda Staunton.
Theatre de Complicite’s Mnemonic at the National Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson
Even now, as I reconstruct my memory of Complicité‘s Mnemonic in order to write this review, it has changed from my instant reaction after the show. Which is only right. This is a play about how memory works, the way it is constantly revised by new experiences, how it is vital for imagining the future.
But it’s more than a trip down Memory Lane: it’s a trip across Europe and a journey 5000 years into the past. It becomes a search for origins, and shows how our past, both personal and shared, informs where we are now and where we might go.
When I came out of the Olivier auditorium at the National Theatre, I was feeling I’d seen a familiar but nevertheless impressive use of mime to tell interesting but fairly simple stories. Now, I feel I saw something hugely important. Why the revision? Partly it’s because I’ve thought about it, but also it’s because the ongoing riots in Britain, which seem to be triggered by a desire to defend a vision of the past against change blamed on immigrants, have reminded me how Mnemonic is not an academic exercise but an examination through theatre of a contemporary issue that will affect all our futures.
I’m sure you know but, just in case, a mnemonic is any device or trick we use to jog our memory, from tying a knot in your handkerchief to using the first letters of words in a phrase to remind you of a sequence. For example: Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain for the colours of the rainbow. This production of Mnemonic itself could be a mnemonic for those who saw the original and are taken back 25 years to what will now be a memory revised by the intervening years and this reimagined version.
In the intervening years, Complicité‘s techniques have come to seem less experimental, some are even commonplace. Few West End musicals are as naturalistic as they once were: they expose how the show is constructed, they use mime. But the book usually takes precedence. Very few productions give equal weight, as Complicité do, to every aspect: sound, light, set, props and the actors’ bodies in what you might call ‘total theatre’ to tell their stories, with text simply the starting point.
We start with a bare stage and a chair. In the style of a rambling comic, a man gives an introduction to the physiology of memory: how each new memory draws on and changes our existing memories (thanks to the hippocampus since you ask). We are invited to put on an eye mask and remember our past, then imagine being a child with our parents and their parents and their parents’ parents, going back through 5000 years at which point everyone on the planet is one of our ancestors which relates neatly, too neatly perhaps, to a recounting of the real life discovery of a human body frozen in the Alps for 5000 years, the so called Ice Man.
Parallel to this is the story of Omar whose girlfriend Alice has left him abruptly to search across Europe for her long-lost father. Cue many fragmentary adventures on a journey which she remembers and recounts, possibly unreliably. In a bravura performance by Eileen Walsh gives a bravura performance as Alice, increasingly frantic and riven with grief, ploughs her way through the diaspora of Jews, Greeks, Arabs and more who have spread across the world to escape danger or find a better life. It seems we are all migrants or the descendants of migrants, and may yet migrate ourselves.
The many possibilities of her ancestry are laid on thickly but show the futility of latching onto one past when you have an almost infinite number, all of which inform your present and, most importantly, your future. The determination to cover so much ground in Alice’s story makes it hard to get involved but it is told with the verve that Complicité are famous for. In particular, there is a moment when her money is stolen, and the memory of someone bumping into her is repeated and repeated, with variations, until finally we see exactly how she was robbed.
A stand out performance from Khalid Abdalla
The tale of the 5000 year old Ice Man was also, on the surface at least, an origins story rather that one obviously about memory. In the gradual development of the archeologists’ understanding of who he was and how he died, we do see an analogy of how memory works. In a wonderfully satirical moment, the scientists are shown sitting in a row at a conference, each imposing their own beliefs onto their interpretation of the scanty evidence that has been uncovered- so the Ice Man is said to have been a shaman, a trader, a hunter and so on. More than that- and it’s rare that Complicité works only on one level- there is the implication that as our common ancestor, he is all the things we are.
At a time when politicians, populists and owners of social media use fear and division to their own ends, it is a good moment to speak up for our common humanity and the way all history flows into each of us and out again.
Mnemonic at the National Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson
But it would be pure didactics without Complicité‘s outstanding way of creating theatre to convey the stories. A bed, a table, a couple of chairs are all that was needed most of the time in Michael Levine‘s spare set. Dialogue is echoed, movements repeated, actors flow around the stage like migrants might flow around the world. A seemingly simple chair transforms into a puppet that takes the last steps of the Ice Man before he died.
At the climax of the evening, the various characters follow one another faster and faster round the stage, as if in a vortex, in which their individuality becomes blurred.
You can imagine this is no walk in the park for the actors. Nearly all are required to take on multiple roles, but also to mime and move with precise choreography. Tim McMullan is tremendous as a senior archeologist full of wonder, humour and enthusiasm. Richard Katz, Laurence Laufenberg, Kostas Philippoglou and Sarah Slimani are all superb.
But the stand out performance comes from Khalid Abdalla, whom you might recognise as Dodi Al Fayed in the TV series The Crown. He plays both Omar, falling apart as he misses Alice, and the Ice Man, picked apart by archeologists. In both roles, he spends much of his time naked, because that’s how the corpse was discovered, and because that’s how Alice likes to see Omar. In both cases, nakedness seems to become a symbol of humanity stripped of all defences and pretences. Without clothing, they are not part of a tribe or a profession or any group, they are Everyone, at either end of 5000 years. Just as the Ice Man is at the mercy of scientists, journalists and nationalists, so Omar’s future is subject to Alice’s wishes.
All of which may seem a long way from memory, or indeed a mnemonic, but what Complicite‘s artistic director Simon McBurney has pulled together, in collaboration with the company, is a piece of pure theatre- in the sense that it would not work as film or any other art form- that evokes how memory of the past is reformed in the present and gives us the possibility of moving forward together. What better way than through the shared experience of theatre to feel our common humanity? My memory says that, despite its weak stories, I witnessed something very special.
Mnemonic can be seen at the National Theatre until 10 August 2024.
Imelda Staunton in Hello, Dolly! Photo: Manuel Harlan
Jerry Herman‘s 1964 musical about a matchmaker in late 19th century New York is given a lavish revival by Dominic Cooke, with an all-conquering Imelda Staunton in the title role. The critics lavished praise on every aspect of the production but saved the highest marks for Ms Staunton.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
Fiona Mountford in the i (5★) said, ‘The Palladium stage is cavernous, but the diminutive Staunton commands it utterly’. She declared, ‘It is delightful to be able to say that right here is a landmark theatrical production that will be talked about for years to come.’ Aliya Al-Hassan at Broadway World (5★) echoed the thought, ‘An immaculate Staunton is the heart of this production, but there is so much to enjoy about this truly joyful show. It will be spoken of in years to come’.
Marianka Swain for LondonTheatre (5★) called it ‘the show of the year’. She explained, ‘Every element is pitch-perfect, from Rae Smith’s delectable costumes…to Bill Deamer’s dreamy choreography…It’s like a Golden Age MGM movie come to life.’ ‘“My heart is about to burst,” the chorus sings. Same here’, said The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (5★). She explained, ‘this production casts a magic spell. Dominic Cooke’s production is immaculately performed and slowly, beautifully life-affirming, with humour that reins in the schmaltz.’
Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times (5★) said, ‘Staunton brings her own blend of splinter-sharp comic timing and emotional depth to the part’. She was impressed that director Dominic Cooke ‘throws everything at it the vast Palladium stage can handle, relishing the chance to savour musical comedy at its bonkers best’. If that wasn’t enough, ‘Cooke and his cast find rich emotional truths and salient points in the story’. Kate Kellaway in The Observer (5★) said, ‘Staunton’s star quality…depends on her miraculous ability to stay genuine and intent, no matter how far-fetched the goings on around her. Naturalness and charm make her a joy to watch.’
Nick Curtis at the Standard (4★) described Imelda Staunton as ‘the driving force of Dominic Cooke’s sumptuous, effervescent production, even bringing a note of pathos to the story’s wry wit and knockabout daftness.’ Neil Norman in the Express (4★) declared that Imelda Staunton brings ‘light and shade to Dolly that only a serious actor at the top of her game could achieve.’ Patrick Marmion in the Daily Mail (4★) claimed, ‘Staunton has the musical wattage of a nuclear power station.’
The Independent’s Alice Saville (4★) described the production as ‘a lean mean entertainment machine’ and praised ‘Bill Deamer’s appropriately high-spirited choreography’. Holly O’Mahony in The Stage (4★) described it as ‘Sparkling with joie de vivre and running on a boisterous charm that prevents this safe but loveable production becoming overly sentimental’. Caroline McGinn reviewing for Time Out (4★) called it ‘a terrific old-fashioned show’.
Dominic Cavendish in the Telegraph (4★) loved Imelda Staunton’s performance: ‘The way this actress can expand to fill a space even while standing still, can have you hanging on the smallest look, whether expressive of beaming mischief, beady assertion or quiet vulnerability, and can raise the roof without breaking into a sweat, reaffirms her as one of British theatre’s greats‘ However, ‘the show itself is like a parade, a succession of scenes that don’t dig very deep’.
Dominic Maxwell in the Sunday Times (4★) was another who wasn’t that keen in the musical but was sold on the production because ‘Staunton owns it all, dances the dance between sad and silly, romantic and frantic. She makes grand conceits seem easy-peasy and serves it up smiling so it hits the back of the room with a satisfying thwack. She’s a true great.’
Critics’ Average Rating 4.4★
Value rating 49 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)
Olivia Washington and Kit Harington in Slave Play. Photo: Helen Murray
‘Is London ready for this?’ asks the publicity material for Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris. We’re promised- sorry, trigger-warned- about racist language, sexual violence, and of course a naked Kit Harington. There’s even a high-tech solution to stop you taking a picture of Kit with his kit off: you’re given a piece of sticky paper to cover your mobile phone’s camera lens. So, is this the most shocking play in the West End?
Well, I wasn’t shocked but, if you are of a sensitive disposition, this may not be the play or indeed the review for you. More to the point, before you read on, I will be revealing a number of plot twists which may not be shocking, but, if you are going to see Slave Play, will spoil the intended surprises. What surprised me is how funny the play is.
The first thing you see is Clint Ramos‘ set. You immediately notice that the back of the stage is covered in mirrors. This means you can see some of your fellow audience members, plus a painting of a Southern States plantation owner’s house that is fixed to the front of the circle. Why the mirrors? Perhaps it’s so you can see who’s finding the discriminatory language funny, and who’s uncomfortable with it. Or maybe, so you can how many black people are in the audience, to which the answer is, definitely more than usual in a West End theatre. Or, given that we the audience are still predominantly white and the slavemaster’s house appears to be in our midst, it could be to remind us that this play is intended to be about us, white as well as black, even if we think it isn’t.
‘Work’ is the name of the first act. A couple appear, played by Kit Harington and Olivia Washington (she’s Denzel Washington’s daughter by the way). Some of the Broadway cast have come over, along with original director Robert O’Hara, but both these actors are new to the play.
Judging by what they are wearing and their drawling speech, we seem to be in a pre-Civil War, or antebellum, Southern state. She’s a black slave, but she’s gyrating to a Rihanna song called Work, as she does her chores. This strikes one as a little odd- a bit Bridgerton maybe. He’s a white overseer but not a slave master, as he is at pains to make clear.
There’s a sexual relationship in which he dominates and she submits. He throws a melon on the floor, which he describes as a watermelon, and tells her to get down and eat it. She corrects him, pointing out it’s a cantaloupe. (The poster for the play cleverly turns a cantaloupe melon into a sexual image.) This seems slightly off kilter, as she appears to be more like his equal, maybe even taking the lead. Nevertheless, as instructed, she eats it off the floor. The scene ends with him eating her.
In the second scene, a mature Southern Belle seduces a mixed race (or ‘mulatto’, as she describes him) servant, who could pass for white. She produces a family heirloom- a large black dildo, which she proceeds to use on him. Like all the sex in this production, it is simulated but quite graphic for the stage, and also laugh-out-loud funny (or maybe not, depending on your sensitivities). For me, the stilted Southern accents and porn movie dialogue made me think it could be called Carry On In The Cotton Fields or perhaps Carry On Up The Khyber might be more appropriate.
Scene three and couple number three: two men, one black, one white. The white man is shifting bales of cotton. He is an indentured servant who eventually licks the boots of his black boss. It is by now fairly obvious that there is some kind of role play going on in which the couples are acting out domination and submission fantasies. We are reminded in the programme of the quote by J N Benjamin: ‘everything is about sex, except sex which is about power’. But it could still, just, be early 19th century America. Act One culminates with all three couples having sex. Then Kit Harington’s character calls out ‘Starbucks’, which turns out to be a safe word, and everyone stops. Two women with clipboards enter and we move from farce to satire.
Act Two is called ‘Process’. It turns out that all three couples are on the fourth day of a therapy group- it’s fantasy day, hence the title Slave Play. The black partners are suffering from anhedonia, the first of many conditions I had never heard of. Some of these are made up but anhedonia does exist and, put simply, is lack of arousal.
They gather for discussion and analysis led by the two researchers, played by Chalia La Tour and Irene Sofia Lucio, both from the Broadway cast. They turn out to have encountered the same problem in their own relationship, which they believe can be overcome using what they call ‘Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy’. This begins an initially hilarious satire as they spout more and more psycho babble, while being at times over sensitive to feelings and at others ignoring them, sometimes shutting down people for saying the ‘wrong thing’ and at others embracing whatever is said and attempting to integrate it into their theory.
Farce and satire are followed by a disturbing climax
To my way of thinking, these couples are simply incompatible, or bored with their relationship. Not so, say the therapists, they maintain that the black participants are feeling the legacy of their ancestors having once been slaves and subject to white imperialism. This is said to affect their sexual relationships with their white lovers. They propose acting out fantasies involving slavery as a solution.
I am assuming from the way the play mocks the researchers that their theory is poppycock. I suspect this extreme kind of unaccredited group therapy is more familiar to Americans than us British. In fact, it’s only a few months since I was at the National Theatre watching Annie Baker’s Infinite Life, another American play about a group of people being conned by bogus therapy.
Slave Play. Photo: Helen Murray
I was amused at first by this central and dominant part of Slave Play, but it is like a satirical sketch that has been stretched out until it stops being funny. A bit like when a pleasant hug carries on until you feel trapped in the embrace.
After a while, I began to wonder how much more humour could be wrung out of these parodies of quack therapists, no matter how well the actors were nailing their techniques. I started to wish there was a safe word I could call out to get us on to the next scene. After all, this play is over two hours long without an interval.
Then, there is a change of gear from comedy to disturbing drama. Despite, rather than because of, the therapists, the black characters overcome what the therapists describe as ‘racialised inhibiting disorder’ and ‘alexithymia’ (guess which term is invented for their difficulty in talking about their emotions). They begin to recognise the true root of their problem, different in each case but with one thing in common.
It has already become clear that the white people are doing a lot of the talking, even though the sessions are supposed to be for the benefit of their black partners. Particularly funny in this respect is the way a middle-aged woman Alana, acted with a wealth of shocked facial expressions by Annie McNamara (from the Broadway cast), constantly speaks for Phillip. He is played with wide-eyed shyness by British actor Aaron Heffernan. She says she doesn’t even think about his colour, until he eventually speaks up and declares that he has been mistaken in thinking that his ability to pass for white is a good thing and that he’s at his most fulfilled when he is seen as being black. He mentions that he was excited by the way they met, when he was brought in by her then husband to fulfil the latter’s cuckold fantasy of seeing his wife have sex with a black man.
Gary, played by British actor Fisayo Akinade, eventually sees that he was wrong to regard a white partner as a kind of prize. Dustin, a flamboyant actor played for laughs by James Cusati-Moyer, who acted the part on Broadway, doesn’t want to think of himself as white. Gary becomes furious that this attitude denies the importance of his own ethnicity. It is one of the most emotional moments in a play that is otherwise more often melodramatic than realistic. The chemistry between them is electric.
Kit Harington‘s Jim, a British white man, is the most skeptical of this so-called Process, and says that he is uncomfortable with role playing a slave master. After some reflection, he observes that his partner seems to regard him as a virus. It is a turning point for Olivia Washington’s Kaneisha, who recognises that her anhedonia has developed because she does see white people that way.
So, at its heart, this play is about an on-going power struggle between white and black people, of which slavery may be the supreme example. The sexual relationships in Slave Play are intended to illustrate that, because white people are used to a society in which they are supreme, they fail to see that they are part of the problem that has caused their black partners’ sexual inhibition.
In the final act, called ‘Exorcise’, the mood becomes more serious. We are back in the bedroom with the couple who opened the play. Kaneisha asks Jim to listen, which he does as she explains to him he needs to recognise that he, as a white man, carries this so-called ‘virus’, because he has inherited a legacy of imperialism, colonialism and, of course, enslaving other races. Then, in a gesture which I took to mean that, this time, he wasn’t simply putting on a costume to play a part, he takes off all his clothes. The lighting is a little subdued as he walks around the bed but it is clear that his body is completely exposed, just as his deepest feelings are now fully acknowledged and revealed.
He once again goes through the ritual of treating her as a slave but this time with sincerity, flinging her, fully clothed, on the bed on her front and climbing on top of her. His aim is not to pleasure her, as in the first scene, but to force himself upon her. All the while, we focus on her calm face and, via the mirrors, and thanks to the bleaching effect of a bright light, at his very white buttocks rising and thrusting. When it’s over, she thanks him, but she is looking at the audience, so it seems she is also thanking those of us who are white for listening and recognising our racial heritage.
Mr Harington does well to convey a character who goes from confident to confused to broken. Ms Washington acts with passion. But, like the rest of the excellent cast, they are portraying characters who too often are ciphers rather than real human beings, and who offer melodrama in place of emotion.
Slave Play may mean more to Americans whose experience of race is different to the British one, so it may not have hit me as forcefully as intended. For me, the points about the psychological effect of white power that Jeremy O. Harris finally teases out in Slave Play, while interesting and provocative, are undermined by the earlier mockery of the psychiatrists. They also take too long to emerge and are less effective than they might be because the narrative is so obviously subservient to an agenda. On the plus side, there is much to enjoy in the sex romps and the send-up of the psycho-therapy industry.
You can see Slave Play at the Noël Coward Theatre until 21 September 2024. Buy tickets direct from the theatre.
This comment was made about the video on the Theatre.Reviews With Paul Seven YouTube channel. It is reproduced with permission:
Thank you for this review. I saw the Broadway production five years ago, and I own a copy of the script, which I subsequently read after seeing the play. So I want to make a few points from the perspective of an American audience member who has quite deep knowledge of the American history of enslavement as an economic institution of domination and exploitation. I should preface this by stating that I’ve volunteered for years for an historic property that is New England’s main site that served as essentially a Northern “plantation.” (The Royall House & Slave Quarters.)
So I think your review is very insightful, but I also think this play is deeply American in a way that probably won’t read the same for a British audience. I deeply appreciate your respectful attempt at having equanimity and reviewing the play on its own terms. However, there are aspects of this play that probably don’t land the same in London. Our particular, awful history with enslavement as an economic institution that formed a backbone to this country’s economy is a deeply American pathology. It really was like a virus that infected us, to borrow the words that the character at the end of the play says out of sorrow and rage. Plantations really do feel like haunted places. Especially the ones whose structures remain in the South. Consider that these sites are sometimes used as wedding venues for white people – how revolting is that? That’s just one example of how the play directly confronts the legacy of this institution. But I don’t even think it is only about that, or enslavement is the antagonist of the play per se.
I think the Carry On reference – which I understand minimally but I imagine you are saying that the sketch comedy aspect feels broad and silly like something called Carry On – is apt. However, I think there is quite a bit more encoded into the seeming humor and whimsy. As another example of the layers this play is operating on and peeping back: the Black characters play surreal versions of harmful Black stereotypes that began during enslavement. These are numerous, and American audiences recognize them right away as integral to our cultural identity. Though they are consigned to the dustbin of history now, it really wasn’t that long ago that these stereotypes carried violent weight. My grandparents’ generation grew up with the colloquial saying, “Eeny, meeny, mynie, mo/catch a __ by his toe/if he hollers, let him go” I’m sure you can imagine the word that goes into the blank, which I could never bring myself to say because it’s so horrifying and destructive. But I’m sure you can deduce what it is from the topic at hand.
When this play came out in 2019 on Broadway, white audiences – even supposed liberals – were getting overheated and angry enough that some of them would scream and yell during the talkbacks. It was the show that introduced “Blackout nights,” where people of color could attend the show among their peers without the intrusion of the White gaze. (Which is something Slave Play addresses – the White gaze – hence the mirror, in case you were wondering why there’s a mirror.) In our country, states are making it illegal to tell the truth about the brutality of enslavement as a racist system of exploitation and appropriation and commodification of the Black body. Even though the public records available in our country will tell us how brutal this system was. In the town in Massachusetts where the farm/plantation was that housed many enslaved people in the years prior to Massachusetts abolishing enslavement, there are public records that list Black/African people as simply property. You can see evidence of these human beings being sold. And bounties being placed on them when they attempted to flee to freedom. This was in Massachusetts, a supposed liberal bastion.
And there is another thing that probably won’t register for an audience member who doesn’t identify as “Queer” or as a member of the LGBTQ+ communities: this play was written by a Black, queer-identifying person whose intersectional identities in both categories are doubly marginalized in this country. Even now, Black queer people in the US are murdered – just for being themselves and existing in public space. That is part of the reason the Rihanna song “Work” is heard in the show. Jeremy O Harris is making a point about the amount of unasked-for labor people with multiply marginalized identities have to carry in this country. That exploitative model is in part due to the legacy of enslavement. If you’ve read a Faulkner novel about these overall subjects, this play is a bit of an offspring of the ideas contained in those books.
I’ll end for now by pointing out: if you want to know just how personal this play is to the US context, a direct example from a current political figure is how white children were afraid to play with Kamala Harris when she was growing up in California. The legacy of this vile institution of enslavement is hundreds of years in the making, and it is America’s Original Sin. (Though colonialism/Other-ing/xenophobia are not unique to the US, of course …) I hope you find these thoughts useful to your consideration of the play.
Olivia Washington and Kit Harington in Slave Play. Photo: Helen Murray
Jeremy O. Harris’ Broadway success arrives with a much-publicised warning: “Is London Ready for Slave Play?” Despite the use of sex as a way of exploring race and the legacy of slavery, it would seem from the reviews that the answer is ‘yes’. Although there are many references to the shocking content (including a naked Kit Harington), the critics themselves seem unshocked. While acknowledging flaws in the underwritten characters or overwritten satire, they generally praised this confrontational drama. The cast impressed them too, particularly Olivia Washington and Mr Harington. But the applause was not universal, as the two 2-star reviews show.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times (4) said it was a ‘rollercoaster of emotions that this blistering, painful and provocative drama involves’ She described ‘A tough, troubling, revealing play: proof again that the stage has become an excellent place to grapple, collectively, with our fraught and freighted times and to help us listen better to our own responses.’ Alice Saville in The Independent (4) found the play ‘multi-layered and deft’, saying, ‘Harris’s play is full of a sharp satirical intelligence’.
Isaac Ouro-Gnao writing for LondonTheatre (4★) told us the play ‘grabs you by the scruff of the neck and refuses to let go for two uninterrupted hours.’ He praised ‘incredible performances from the whole cast’. He had one reservation, namely the final scene, which is ‘distasteful and gratuitously violent, sullying an overall brilliant production.’ Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski (4★) took the opposite view, ‘In the end I felt ‘Slave Play’ is really made by its dynamite final scene…Intimate, tender, brave, repellant and gut wrenching’.
Nick Curtis in the Standard (4★) called it ‘challenging in the best way. It uses sex and therapy as metaphors for society’s wider inability to talk honestly about race and touches on the desensitisation of modern life.’ He said, ‘Harris’s ear for dialogue, and his ability to stoke tension and wrong-foot the audience are terrific. He’s not so hot on character.’ Sam Marlowe in The Stage (4★) found, ‘it is grotesquely funny and extremely disturbing, stunningly visceral yet punishingly verbose, brilliantly clever but at times dramatically frustrating.’ It ‘flings us between shock, hilarity and horror,’ she said. However, ‘the play feels overlong, and’ (agreeing with Nick Curtis above) ‘the sense of the characters as fully developed individuals is fitful’.
The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (4) decided ‘the play is too clever for its own good, throwing the subject matter in the air without quite landing it, and is an intense experience, in spite of its romping humour and trotting pace.’ She concluded positively, ‘It might be flawed but it is charismatic, needling theatre. An event.’ Neil Norman in the Express (4★) was also ambivalent: ‘It’s funny, clever and undoubtedly challenging, though neither as outrageous nor profound as it would like to be.’
Dominic Cavendish in the Telegraph (3) was another with mixed feelings: ‘The mood tips between the satirical and the earnest; the dialogue oscillates between groping babble and blinding revelation.’ Ke Meng at Theatre Weekly (3★) was disappointed: ‘Unfortunately, rather than being genuinely provocative, Robert O’Hara’s direction steers the show in a more comedic and funny manner—even in the erotic scenes.’ She also found the acting ‘a bit hammed’. Susannah Clapp in The Observer (3★) thought it was a bit obvious: ‘The discussions are so laden, so evident, that they drag down the drama.’
Dominic Maxwell in The Times (2★) said, ‘it boasts some acute moments and fine performances…(yet it) comes across as the sort of ideas-led piece that would stimulate over an hour but has instead unwisely swollen to two hours.’ Tomiwa Owolade reviewing for the Sunday Times (2★) decided ‘it is not provocative or daring’ and thought most people ‘will find the play occasionally amusing, but mostly tedious.’
Alexander Cohen at Broadway World (2★) cautioned, ‘What it considers outrageous, here in London in 2024, doesn’t feel all that shocking’ before going on to describe some of the content in shocking detail. The play was, he said, ‘too obsessed with conceptual naval gazing to the extent that it forgets that its characters are human beings.’ (I assume that’s a typo unless the play really is looking at maritime activities.) He decided, ‘it’s a structureless whirlwind of serious and silly’.
Critics’ Average Rating 3.4★
Value rating 38 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)
Four Detroit workers’ lives are devastated by redundancy in Dominique Morriseau’s 2016 play. Matthew Xia directs a UK premiere that was generally liked by the critics.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times (5★) described it as a ‘funny, humane, deeply moving drama’.
Over at The Stage (4★) Dave Fargnoli called it a ‘powerful and humane drama’. The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar (4★) said ‘The production itself thrums with life’. Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (4★) talked of ‘the power and compassion of its analysis of the weight that unfettered pursuit of profit puts on the lives of ordinary men and women.’
Nick Curtis in the Standard (4★) talked of ‘a beautifully-observed, well-made comedy drama about hardscrabble existence, and Matthew Xia directs a fine cast with laid-back assurance.’ Alexander Cohen at BroadwayWorld (4★) called it ‘a pummelling emotional workout’. Helen Hawkins writing The Arts Desk (4★) commented, ‘Matthew Xia’s intelligent direction gets the best from the text and this fine cast.’
Lindsay Johns writing for the Telegraph (4★) said the ‘muscular, edgy dialogue…is shot through with tenderness, warmth and psychological veracity’. John Cutler at The Reviews Hub (4★) noted, ‘Absent much of a storyline, the piece works most effectively as a nuanced and finely crafted look at the dynamics of a found family, and at working class lives lived under the constant pressure of unwanted change.’
Dominic Maxwell in The Times (3★) said, ‘Skeleton Crew is full of bright exchanges about the characters’ grim forebodings. It’s a show that sets out to simmer more than come to the boil.’
Matt Wolf at London Theatre (3★) said, ‘even if Skeleton Crew sometimes dawdles when it might otherwise detonate, an exemplary cast foregrounds the need for dignity and compassion’.
Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out (assumed 3★) felt it compared unfavourably with the work of Lynn Nottage on similar themes but nevertheless ‘What Morriseau does extremely well is bring together four well-rounded characters (and) show their lives through the prism of work.’
Critics’ Average Rating 3.8★
Value rating 69 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)
Mia Kobayashi and Zheng Xi Yong in Your Lie in April. Photo: Craig Sugden
A Japanese manga comic which became anime TV series has reached London theatre as a musical. It’s the story of a traumatised young pianist and a love that may save him. Huge praise for the young stars, Zheng Xi Yong and Mia Kobayashi, is offset by disappointment, mockery even, for many other aspects of the production The American music by Frank Wildhorn received a mixed reception. Reviews are trickling in slowly so do come back for an update.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
Gary Naylor in Broadway World (5★) offered this advice (which plenty of reviewers didn’t take): ‘Fold your arms and harumph and you’ll miss the point; get dizzy recalling that first flush of adolescent desire and the agony of its not being reciprocated, and you’re in.’ He thought ‘the songs are plenty good enough to stand on their own two feet.’ He declared, ‘Mia Kobayashi…radiates superstar power.’
For Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre (4★) it ‘has a knocks-you-flat emotional force that you cannot resist. It will absolutely make you cry.’ The songs were key for her: ‘Each one of these sensationally catchy pop-rock anthems has a disarming sincere directness‘. It was, she concluded, an ‘impassioned, uplifting and deeply moving musical’
The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (3★) listed all reasons she didn’t like it. The book? ‘full of cheesy cliches.’ The characters? ‘Americanised and schematic.’ The plot? ‘overdramatic, underexplained’. The design? ‘mystifying, with a thrown-together look.’ Fortunately, ‘the songs, along with spirited performances, become the show’s saving grace.’ Paul Vale for The Stage (3★) also liked the music: ‘this is Wildhorn’s best score of recent years, capturing both the spirit of manga and the power of music to restore the soul.’
Dzifa Benson writing for the Telegraph (3★) had a negative view of the music ‘let down by Frank Wildhorn’s generic show-tunes,’ but thought ‘All the performances…are spot on’.
‘Buyer beware,’ said Dominic Maxwell in The Times (3★), ‘it’s a cheesefest from start to finish. What can I say, though? Sometimes a platter of cheese is just what you fancy.’
The ‘show is overpowered by the crashing clichés of its story and the clunky Americanisms of Rinne B Groff’s English version,’ said Tom Wicker reviewing for Time Out (3★ assumed). He pointed out, ‘you’re in trouble with a musical when the songs are straining so hard to be inspirational that a plot-device bike ride gets as rousing an anthem as a character’s death.’
Nick Curtis in The Standard (2★) hated it, and he didn’t pull his punches: ‘this emotionally overwrought Japanese musical…strikes me as absurd…it’s glib, mawkish and riddled with clichés.’ As for the music, ‘Frank Wildhorn’s score is dominated by gushy, eyes-aloft, mouth-agape anthems’. Here’s his knockout blow: ‘Anger, grief and anxiety are turned up to 11 for the most OTT songs before the tone slips back to the gurgling, simpering comedy of a teen sitcom.’
Critics’ Average Rating 3.3★
Value rating 44 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)
Your Lie in April can be seen at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 21 September 2024. Buy tickets directly from yourlieinapril.co.uk
If you’ve seen Your Lie in April at the Harold Pinter, please add your review and rating below
Theatre de Complicite’s Mnemonic at the National Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson
First performed in 1999, Complicité’s legendary experimental work Mnemonic has been revived, with some updating. The stories of a woman searching across Europe and the discovery of a 5000-year-old man preserved in ice are the main strands in an exploration of memory, human migration and identity. It is directed by Simon McBurney, Complicité’s founder and Artistic Director. A high number of five and four star reviews for its dazzling theatricality were offset slightly by those from critics who thought it seemed old hat.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
Sarah Hemming writing for the Financial Times (5★) proclaimed it as ‘a profound celebration of the nature of theatre: the collective act of imagination that allows us to collaborate in bringing the past to life…witty, elusive, intensely beautiful and humane.’ Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (5★) ‘Sequences blend fluidly together, with echoing dialogue and recurring gestures carrying through from one scene to the next, creating an aural and visual collage of overlapping content. Understated yet precise physical work offers striking imagery, while plenty of humour keeps the energy up’.
Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski (5★) talked of ‘brain melting experimental odysseys that’ll rewire your cerebellum’ ‘it builds into something luminous and huge and almost beyond comprehension. Its last few minutes feel like staring overwhelmed at the secrets of creation.’ Dominic Maxwell at The Times (5★) was also bowled over: ‘Scenes, lines and set pieces slip into one another with invigorating speed. Big ideas keep coming, but so do good jokes. No time to get bored.’ He ended with this recommendation, ‘So, still a masterpiece. If you love theatre, see it. If you don’t love theatre, it might just change your mind.’
The Standard’s Nick Curtis (4★) discovered ‘a teeming, fecund representation of McBurney’s ability to make giant associative leaps while drilling down into what makes us human. It’s beautifully performed’. Alex Wood at WhatsOnStage (4★) said the show ‘has a vast, continental sweep that makes it an enthralling proposition for the audience.’ It made an impression too on Nick Ferris at the Telegraph (4★): ‘this remains unique experimental theatre, which will linger in the mind long after its conclusion.’
The Observer’s (3 ★) Susannah Clapp compared this production with the original. She said, ‘the qualities with which Complicité has for ever altered the stage are apparent throughout’ However, ‘this reincarnation is more deliberate, more didactic, more confusing than the original.’
The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (3 ★) felt shortchanged: ‘with all these exquisite parts, the production does not quite deliver on a promise of profundity in tying them together’. She commented, ‘the show does not feel as much of a revolution of ideas and stagecraft as it did in 1999’. Fiona Mountford at i-news (3 ★) made the same point: ‘what previously appeared so ground-breaking has lost a little of its novelty and lustre since’.
Alexander Cohen at Broadway World (2★) was more blunt: ‘Perhaps in 1999 its dreamlike dizziness was revolutionary. In 2024 it feels too predictable to truly dazzle.’
Critics’ Average Rating 4.0★
Value rating 81 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)
Starlight Express at the Troubadour Wembley Park. Photo: Pamela Raith
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express is back, and this time it’s a new production in The Troubadour, a warehouse-like venue that has been transformed into an immersive space. It’s the tale of a children’s train set come to life, and underdog Rusty being inspired to win a race with other engines. It may sound like a children’s show but the lively songs and roller skating cast provide plenty of adults to enjoy. Most, but not all, reviewers liked it, some loved it. It was generally agreed to be a spectacular production.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
Dominic Cavendish in the Telegraph (5★) was so knocked out by this production, he saw stars, five of them. It’s a ‘head-spinning wonderland’, ‘jaw-dropping’, ‘part theme-park ride, part theatrical revolution’, he enthused, with ‘much magic and life-affirming meaning’. He ended, ‘The energy and bravura of it all are frankly out of this world.’
Paul Vale for The Stage (5★) also gave full marks: ‘(Tim) Hatley’s design is a fusion of industrial brutalism and disco chic, with a racetrack that weaves around the auditorium with ramps, tunnels and a revolve. Gabriella Slade’s sculpted costumes are a meticulously constructed mix of colourful body armour and Lycra that reflect each character.’
The Daily Mail‘s Patrick Marmion (4★) proclaimed, ‘This eyeball-scorching, ear-blasting revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s train-racing musical-on-roller-skates is an audio-visual blitzkrieg, the like of which I’ve never seen before.’ Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (4★) was impressed: ‘tailor-made for the Troubadour’s massive auditorium, it erupts like a Vesuvius of light, sound, projection and dry ice under the direction of Luke Sheppard’. The songs, she said, ‘are masterfully sung all round, alongside the athletic feats of the cast.’
The Independent‘s Tim Bano (4★) confessed, ‘It’s more spectacle than sense, an extraordinary creative onslaught, with songs about steam engines cranked out at max volume, all designed to delight your inner child – which it really does.’ He expanded, ‘Everything about it is maximalist. Tim Hatley’s set has ramps and revolves and sliding doors, costumes by Gabriella Slade turn humans into Transformers/Power Rangers/living cartoon things.’
‘Starlight Express is possibly one of the world’s most bizarre musicals,’ declares Aliya Al-Hassan at Broadway World (4★). Nevertheless, ‘The auditorium itself feels like being thrown into the middle of an arcade game’ and she concludes, ‘As a theatrical experience, this will make a life-long impression on many young theatre-goers’.
Marianka Swain for LondonTheatre (4★) sounded like she needed to breathe into a paper bag: ‘the actors playing trains whizzed right past me on roller skates at heart-pounding speeds. But that’s just the beginning of this mind-blowing state-of-the-art experience.’ She continued, ‘This tech-wizard production also boasts the biggest lighting rig I’ve ever seen in theatre, and a phenomenal display from Howard Hudson’ and concluded, ‘It’s an awe-inspiring stadium gig-meets-theme park ride of a show’.
The Times’ Clive Davis (4★) thought it was a great show for children: ‘The director Luke Sheppard moves things along at a gallop.’
Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski (3 ★) admitted, it’s ‘a lot of fun and has no aspirations to be anything other than exactly what it is.’ ‘It is technically dazzling,’ he added. Dominic Maxwell in the Sunday Times (3 ★) summed up: ‘mostly catchy songs, a crack cast, choreography and design let the trains take the strain of anything so tedious as rational thought.’
There’s always someone who’ll throw leaves on the line, and on this occasion it’s Fiona Mountford at the i (2★) Among the many things she disliked was the way ‘Large video screens pump out irredeemably naff 80s-style graphics’. She was left in the sidings by the production: ‘this slick but soulless show left me none the wiser’
Critics’ Average Rating 3.9★
Value rating 38 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)
Starlight Express is at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre until June 2025. Click here to buy tickets direct from Troubadour Theatres
If you’ve seen Starlight Express at the Troubadour, please add your review and rating below
