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Reviews roundup: Backstroke with Tamsin Greig & Celia Imrie

Imrie & Greig convince in fractious mother-daughter relationship

Donmar Warehouse
Amiddle-aged woman and an old woman sit opposite each other at a kitchen table
Tamsin Greig & Celia Imrie in Backstroke

Tamsin Greig is a menopausal daughter who remembers and reassesses her relationship with her dying mother played by Celia Imrie. Their acting received universal praise from the critics although the play elicited mixed opinions. There was general agreement that it was too long but some found Anna Mackmin’s debut play, which she also directed, ‘emotional’ and ‘involving’, others thought it ‘unbelievable’ and ‘perfunctory’.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Helen Hawkins at TheArtsDesk (4★) called it ‘extraordinary because it puts the audience inside the maelstrom of these characters’ lives, forcing us to focus on how we interpret them and how our lives might resemble theirs.’ She declared ‘Imrie and Greig are superb in all the different manifestations of these two women’.

Clive Davis in The Times (4★) described Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig as ‘mesmerising’. He said ‘Mackmin, who also directs, alternates moments of pathos and flashes of gallows humour.’

Michael Sidhu for Radio Times (4★) said, ‘Make no mistake, this is an emotional and intimate play. There is a tenderness in the way Greig and Imrie play against one another. There are moments where it is uncomfortable to watch. It’s a cathartic experience that stays with you long after you leave the theatre behind.’

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe (3★) said, ‘There are some beautiful passages of writing, both terrifying and tender, and exquisite acting in Mackmin’s production’. ‘there’s also a huge amount of laughter here’ ‘The narrative can ultimately lead only in one direction, and its inevitability leaves you craving more. But this is a heartfelt, unsentimental portrayal of the slippery cord of maternal connection.’

Holly O’Mahony at LondonTheatre (3★) felt  ‘the play feels generally repetitive, with too many scenes exploring the same dynamic, even if Imrie and Greig are always gripping to watch.’

’Celia Imrie as the mother and Tamsin Greig as daughter give immense performances’ said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (3★). She had mixed feelings about the writing, calling it ‘an unruly and frustrating play but also original and moving, which captures sometimes searing pieces of mother-and-daughterhood’

Dominic Cavendish in the Telegraph (3★) asserted ‘the production confirms Greig as one of our finest actresses – her deadpan features a surface beneath which churns so much; she can convey incredulity with a raised eyebrow, exhaustion with a sustained blink.’

Sarah Crompton of WhatsOnStage (2★) felt ‘the director doesn’t tell Mackmin the writer when enough is enough. Everything is given equal honour and nothing ever reaches clear water. A disappointment.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis (2★) went further: ‘the opposite of a good night out’.  He explained, ‘the story’s humour and pathos feel synthetic and unearned, the depiction of the issues surrounding end-of-life care glib and perfunctory.’

Tim Bano writing for Time Out (no rating) concluded ‘these two characters – partly hard to like, partly hard to believe – mean that by the irritatingly platitudinous ending, we’ve long had enough.’

Critics’ average rating 3.1★

Backstroke can be seen at Donmar Warehouse, London, until 12 April 2025. Buy tickets direct from donmarwarehouse.com

Read Paul’s 4 star review here

Watch Paul’s review on YouTube

If you’ve seen Backstroke at the Donmar, please add your review and rating below

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Theatre review: Backstroke with Tamsin Greig & Celia Imrie – Donmar Warehouse

Debut play prises open mother-daughter relationship

★★★★

Amiddle-aged woman and an old woman sit opposite each other at a kitchen table
Tamsin Greig & Celia Imrie in Backstroke. Photo: Johan Persson

Backstroke is a debut play receiving its premiere at the Donmar Warehouse. It’s about a daughter remembering and reassessing her relationship with her dying mother. And when this particular mother and daughter are played by Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig, you know you’re in for a treat.

It’s not a usual occurrence to have your first play premiered at the Donmar Warehouse with Tamsin Greig and Celia Imrie as the stars. Then again, Anna Mackmin is not your usual playwright. She is steeped in theatre. Having been to acting school, she became a director and for the last twenty years has been behind some of the most memorable productions on the London stage, including Dancing At Lughnasa, The Real Thing and Hedda Gabler at the Old Vic, and Di and Viv and Rose and The Divine Mrs S at Hampstead. And who better to direct her first play than Anna Mackmin herself?

This is not her first piece of writing. Her 2018 novel Devoured, inspired by her childhood with a hippy mother, was well received. So, perhaps the first thing to say about Backstroke is that it is a beautifully written drama. It uses the stage well, it gives the actors plenty to get their teeth into, and it tells a good story as it prises open the oyster of their relationship to reveal the unexpected pearl within.

We first encounter Beth, played by Celia Imrie, in a hospital bed, symbolically at the highest, most central point of Lez Brotherston’s set. She is being visited by her daughter Bo, played by Tamsin Greig. After about ten minutes of Bo talking to her silent mother, who has had a stroke, and to the various medical staff, I began to think ‘Celia Imrie’s got an easy role’. Then we got into the nitty gritty of the drama.

Triggered by the possibly imminent death of her mother, Bo’s thoughts travel to the past. As they do, Celia Imrie slides out of bed and walks down to the front of the thrust stage, into the kitchen where so many encounters between them took place over the years. We begin to learn about the tempestuous relationship between a mother who is very needy and a daughter who is expected to cater for those needs. There is love, there is attachment, and there is conflict as the play gradually unravels their complex ties.

No mothers are perfect but Beth is self-centred, avoids intimacy, and doesn’t really want to acknowledge that she is her child’s mother (‘don’t call me mummy’) even though this would-be free spirit needs the stability and companionship of her daughter. We experience Bo’s frustration when, for example, Beth hasn’t woken her, as promised, and she will be late for her first day at college. Then we, along with Bo, realise that it’s because she doesn’t want to part with her.

Parallel to this, Bo is tied up with the challenge of being a mother herself to an adopted daughter who is finding it difficult to settle into family and school. So, she is attempting to balance the needs of her daughter, her career and her dying mother. Beth, by the way, is hundreds of miles away, which means Bo has the guilt of not being able to visit often enough, and the guilt of being away from her daughter. A feeling which I’m sure will be familiar to many in the audience.

Uplifting and heartbreaking

Part of the power of this play is Anna Mackmin’s ability to take you inside the heads of these characters. Celia Imrie’s larger-than-life Beth talks in florid language that has the effect of creating a shield to keep her daughter at bay, but often there is a look of fear behind her eyes. Tamsin Greig’s Bo develops from childhood to middle age, her enthusiasm gradually dampened, her youthful protest turning to a whine. But always there is a nervous need to understand what’s going on in her mother’s brain. She frequently pauses to process events. Used to feeling frustrated, she is almost permanently open-mouthed, but has a warm smile that refutes her inherited dislike of the intimacy of touching.

Backstroke at the Donmar. Photo: Johan Persson

All the while, fragments of Bo’s memories of both her mother and daughter play on a large backdrop. I’m not normally a fan of mixing film with live drama but in this case the video designed by Gino Ricardo Green is highly effective in showing how memories are always with us and shape who we are.

When Beth’s brain starts to be affected by dementia, although some of the things she says are humorous, like ‘You’ve made your bed, now you can lie about it’, Bo, and we, soften in our feelings about her. Beth has never been able to help being the way she is.

The first act is a little too long but after the interval the play explodes into life. We learn that the relationship was not as one-sided as it first appeared. The episodes in their life together show us how the bond is mutual, and how Bo has much to be grateful to her mother for. When they dance together, choreographed incidentally by Anna Mackmin’s sister Scarlett, it is a joyous moment.

The ending is both uplifting and heartbreaking, as the most intimate moment between them when Bo was a child is resurrected in Beth’s last moments. A circle has been completed and, in an epilogue, Bo speaks movingly of what her late mother did for her. Tamsin Greig’s emotional delivery brought a lump to my throat.

Although her mother’s mortality is what prompts Bo’s memories of her, the play also touches on the process of dying itself. There is consideration of how we treat people at the end of life. The hospital staff shows us three approaches to patients who to them have no history, and, more to the point, no memory: there is the objective indifference of Georgina Rich‘s matter-of-fact doctor to whom Beth is just another unit; a nurse Carol, given a terrific sour-mouthed performance by Lucy Briers, who tries to impose her own moral agenda on the treatment; and there’s nurse Jill, convincingly played by Anita Reynolds, who reveals the heart beneath her patronising chirpiness. Inevitably, the mainly absent Beth is frustrated that the staff don’t understand her mother’s care needs in the way she does.

This is an extraordinarily good debut play.

Backstroke can be seen at the Donmar Warehouse until 12 April 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre.

Paul attended a preview and paid for his ticket.

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

 

 

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Reviews roundup: Tom Hiddleston & Hayley Atwell in Much Ado About Nothing

Party Time with Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell

theatre royal drury lane
Hayley Atwell & Tom HIddleston in Much Ado About Nothing

Director Jamie Lloyd has turned Shakespeare’s romantic comedy into a confetti strewn party. The critics loved the production and the stars Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell. It received a tidal wave of 5 star reviews plus a handful awarding a ‘mere’ 4 stars, making it the highest rated limited-run show in the West End.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Andrzej Lukowksi in Time Out (5★) declared ‘it is very funny, it looks incredible, and if Lloyd has festooned it in millennial silliness then I guess what’s actually more significant is the way he, Hiddleston and Atwell have teased the Beatrice-Benedick romance into a poignant story about middle aged loneliness and being left behind as your friends settle.’

Sarah Hemming of The Financial Times (5★) certainly liked it: ‘Hiddleston’s Benedick is impishly charming, savouring his own waggishness, flirting with the audience…Atwell responds with a Beatrice of mercurial intelligence and emotional truth…Heartbreak, hope, healing — it’s all here in this gorgeous, big-hearted production.’

Dominic Cavendish of the Telegraph (5★) thought ‘The boldest stroke (design: Soutra Gilmour) is a sustained shower of pink confetti. It’s faintly magical to behold; on another level, it chimes with the play’s tragicomic mix of autumnal wistfulness and amorous adventure.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis (5★) was awestruck: ‘The rain of flamingo confetti, the sexually androgynous and brightly-coloured costumes, the charisma and chemistry of two good-looking stars, the air of hedonism and the drama of the big, bare stage… this is altogether gorgeous.’

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (5★) said, ‘This is a thoroughly weird and absolutely wonderful re-conceptualisation, turning Shakespeare’s comedy, which narrowly swerves tragedy, into an old school house party cum modern romcom.’ Aliya Al-Hassan of BroadwayWorld (5★) called it ‘Hugely camp, incredibly romantic and wildly fun.’

Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre (5★) was impressed: ‘A very game Hiddleston leans into the hamminess of the posturing Benedick, from his rock-star entrance amid a cloud of dry ice to his eyebrow-waggling audience flirtation (“I am loved of all ladies” indeed), madcap dad-dancing, or teasing of a buff chest by undoing his shirt buttons…Atwell also handles that tonal balance with incredible aplomb. Her Beatrice is a quick-witted, passionate, uncompromising force of nature, but she is capable of profound stillness too.’

Sarah Crompton WhatsOnStage (5★) also raved about the two stars’ ‘ability to take Shakespeare’s words and make them both truthful and incredibly funny today.’ About Tom Hiddleston, she said, ‘he brings the full weight of his charm and his impeccable timing to bear both on Beatrice and on the gallery. He weaves through the lines with revealing precision, finding lovely pauses between thoughts’. Her praise for Hayley Atwell was just as fulsome: ‘Few actresses have her power to summon emotion and show thought, not just through her face, but in her entire body.  She is clever, quick with the lines, but also completely in touch with her feelings.’

Stefan Kyriazis for the Express (5★) ‘This show is camp, mischievous, exuberant, romantic, life, love and laughter-affirming bliss.’ Rachel Halliburton at The Arts Desk (5★) summed it as ‘one of the best parties in town’.

I’m not sure why Clive Davis of The Times (4★) dropped a star but he was full of praise: ‘Lloyd’s mischievous club-culture reinvention of Much Ado About Nothing has colour, passion and, in the form of Tom Hiddleston, a head-miked leading man who is absolutely in command. His Benedick leers and winks at the audience, gives his fans a peek of an ultra-chiselled six-pack and demonstrates that he’s light on his feet too. Hayley Atwell more than holds her own as a wilful Beatrice strutting her stuff in a catsuit.’

The Independent‘s Alice Saville (4★) told us ‘Soutra Gilmour’s fantastically ballsy design fills the stage with a gigantic, floor-to-ceiling inflatable love heart while seemingly-neverending drifts of pink confetti speckle the air around them…Fluffy though his staging might look, Lloyd strips the frills from this story to reveal the push and pull of rejection and reconciliation at its heart.’

Dave Fargnoli for The Stage (4★) described it as ‘Joyous, unashamedly silly and shot through with real tenderness’. He was pleased that ‘Shakespeare’s language is made breezy and lucid by a uniformly strong cast with an absolute grasp of the piece’s poetry and humour.’ Greg Stewart of Theatre Weekly (4★) called it ‘an exhilarating theatrical experience anchored by stellar performances from its leads and ensemble.’

Critics’ Average Rating 4.7★

Value rating 49 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Much Ado About Nothing can be seen at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane until 5 April 2025. Click here to buy direct from the  theatre 

If you’ve seen Much Ado About Nothing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, please add your review and rating below

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Theatre Reviews Roundup: Jonathan Bailey as Richard II

Jonathan Bailey gives a regal performance

Bridge theatre
Jonathan Bailey as Richard II at The Bridge

There was a mostly positive reaction from the critics to Jonathan Bailey‘s portrayal of Richard II. The Bridgerton star has the chance to show a range of emotion as a man born to be king but unfit for the role.  Shakespeare‘s play covers the last two turbulent years’ of his reign . There was slightly less enthusiasm for Nicholas Hytner‘s production which many felt was uninspired.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar (4★) enjoyed it: ‘Nicholas Hytner, as director, smooths away most of the play’s creakiness with a pared-down production that has the pace and intrigue of a thriller. It is muscular in its look and Bailey singularly shines, his luminosity putting the others slightly in the shade.’

Olivia Rook at LondonTheatre (4★) was another fan: ‘Bailey reveals and revels in all facets of this magnetic king and as Hytner has said in multiple interviews, he speaks Shakespeare “as though it is his first language”.’ Neil Norman in the Express (4★) thought ‘Bailey is effectively ineffectual as Richard, viciously petulant and deluded throughout’. He called Hytner’s production ‘illuminating’.

Sarah Crompton for WhatsOnStage (4★) was also on board: ‘The most compelling quality of the staging – driven on by a Hitchcockian score by Grant Olding – is the way that it treats the unfolding events not as historical inevitability, but as if they are changing moment to moment.’ She continued, ‘It’s propulsively driven, and often surprisingly funny, wheeling along with an absolute confidence. It’s been a long time since Hytner’s directed a history play and it feels worth the wait.’

Cindy Marcolina for BroadwayWorld (4★) liked the star but not the production: ‘Bailey now takes on a complicated head of state, breaking him open and thinning the lines between divisive, problematic political figure and sardonic, villainous poet. It’s Jonathan Bailey’s world and we’re merely living in it, but Nicholas Hytner’s production sees a five-star cast stuck in a three-star show. A drastic lack of identity keeps this Richard II moored, making it a standard modern-day adaptation that refuses to delve into anything particular.’

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis (4★) opined, ‘Jonathan Bailey gives the best performance I’ve ever seen of Shakespeare’s flawed monarch, an erratic tyrant who gains dignity once deposed.’ The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish (3★) had had better: ‘He acquits himself well…even if, despite impressive splenetic flourishes, he doesn’t attain the recent greatness of Ben Whishaw and David Tennant in the part.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (3★) mischievously reported, ‘Jonathan Bailey gives us a monarch who is forever teetering on the edge of hysteria, with a touch of camp too…a surprising amount of laughter kept rippling through the stalls…Had we stumbled into a pilot episode of Blackadder?’

Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out (3★) was lukewarm: ‘Bailey’s king…at his best presents the air of a smug but inept middle manager’. He continued: ‘There is interesting territory to be explored in the hinterlands between Richard’s supposedly divine appointment and his mediocrity as a person. But too often Hytner’s production gets lost in them.’

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe (3★) felt Jonathan Bailey rose above the production: ‘The staging is solid rather than exceptional. But Bailey makes a transfixing Richard, his plight engaging to the last, despite the nastier excesses of his capricious behaviour.’

Critics’ Average Rating 4.0

Value rating 48 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Richard II can be seen at the Bridge Theatre until 10 May 2025. Click here to buy direct from the  theatre 

If you’ve seen Jonathan Bailey in Richard II at the Bridge Theatre, please add your review and rating below

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Theatre reviews roundup: Unicorn with Nicola Walker, Stephen Mangan & Erin Doherty

Which critics fancied a threesome?

Garrick Theatre
Stephen Mangan, Nicola Walker & Erin Doherty in Unicorn. Photo: Marc Brenner

A threesome featuring Nicola Walker, Stephen Mangan and Erin Doherty sounds like somebody’s sexual fantasy. In fact, some theatre critics decided the plot of Unicorn was a fantasy.  They found it funny and well acted but they didn’t believe Mike Bartlett’s story. Others were impressed by the idea of a middle-aged couple considering linking up with a young woman to spice up their sex life, then finding it leads to something more profound, driven by the needs of the ‘unicorn’.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

LondonTheatre‘s Marianka Swain (4★) appreciated the quality of the play, calling it ‘gloriously funny and deeply empathetic’. She also extolled the virtues of the actors: ‘Walker is a fierce joy as Polly, barrelling through roller-coaster monologues in which she talks herself in and out of her desires. Mangan is unsurpassable at that very British self-deprecating discomfort: witness his horror when, trying to sound hip, he praises Kate’s “clobber”. Erin Doherty lends Kate an effective cool self-assurance, although all three later exhibit raw vulnerability.’

Praising it for its ‘sophistication, wit and insight’, The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish (4★) said ‘this menage a trois is steeped in an acid understanding of ageing and mortality.’ He declared the cast to be ‘a dream team – every shifty look, pause and understated gesture hits home.’

Susannah  Clapp of The Observer (4★) noted, ‘I have rarely seen actors change from within so subtly and definitively. Doherty becomes harder though still hopeful; Walker stops whirring and settles into stillness; Mangan stops lounging and consolidates. Together they humanise what at first appears as a mechanical arrangement’. Greg Stewart for Theatre Weekly (4★) thought it was ‘a modern play that’s deeply thought provoking and surprisingly funny.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis (4★) went deep:  ‘On the surface Unicorn…is a snappy comedy full of quotable lines, exploring the awkwardness of challenging norms and admitting one’s own desires. On a deeper level it asks – still hilariously, thank goodness – how we should find meaning and joy in the face of a world going to ruin, and the inevitability of death.’ He wasn’t satisfied with the ending: ‘Though the play has flaws, and falls apart completely at the end, it’s never less than a rollicking, stimulating ride. If you’ll pardon the expression.’

CityAM’s Adam Bloodworth (4) loved it: ‘it features some of the sharpest writing on in the West End right now, if not ever’. He also praised it for being ‘“fuss free”: a triplet of good actors playing interesting people delivering interesting lines’.

Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (3★) said, ‘It’s never dull and often devastating, but somehow it fails to land with the weight for which it is striving.’ It is ‘often very, very funny,’ she went on, ‘Bartlett’s writing hits its targets with unerring precision, but in the second half, as the action darkens and develops in unexpected ways, his themes seem more diffuse.’ For her, Erin Doherty gave ‘a lovely, subtle, darting performance.’ Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowksi (3★) was lukewarm about it: ‘It’s pretty MOR! But there’s enough of a twinkle in its eye that it never feels entirely conventional.’

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (2★) found ‘their relationships are peculiarly devoid of passion, too declarative of their desires. However intimate the conversation becomes, the chemistry in this throuple never quite ignites.’

Clive Davis at The Times (2★) found ‘The first half offers some provocative questions about the unsettling power of desire, but an overlong series of conversational tableaux loses its grip well before the end.’

Aliya Al-Hassan for BroadwayWorld (2★) felt ‘What is missing from the production is some real passion and a tangible build in the sexual tension between all characters.’ Although ‘The first half is sparky, often clever and has some genuinely funny moments’, she found ‘the play really stutters in the second half. The realities of being in a throuple are never explored, beyond an incredibly idealistic portrayal.’

Sam Marlowe in The Stage (2★) wrote, ‘In a polished production by James Macdonald, it’s coolly intelligent and smartly acted by Erin Doherty, Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan. But for a drama that is concerned with desire, it’s verbose and oddly passionless, and its circuitous musings verge on frustrating.’

Dominic Maxwell in The Sunday Times (2★) summed up the antis, calling it a ‘talk-heavy, action-light, unconvincing and overlong quasi-comedy.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.1

Value rating 35 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Unicorn can be seen at the Garrick Theatre until 26 April 2025. Click here to buy direct from the  theatre

Read Paul Seven’s 4 star review here or watch it on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

If you’ve seen Unicorn at the Garrick Theatre, please add your review and rating below

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Theatre review: Unicorn with Nicola Walker, Stephen Mangan & Erin Doherty

Two plus one equals a challenging comedy


★★★★

Stephen Mangan, Nicola Walker & Erin Doherty in Unicorn. Photo: Marc Brenner

Unicorn is about a middle-aged couple played by Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan who are attracted to the idea of introducing a third person into their relationship- in the form of a younger woman played by Erin Doherty.

This makes it a difficult play to review. Not because of some of the language- although that’s a problem too- but because so much of the play is about whether they will or won’t go ahead. I’ll do my best to talk about this adventurous comedy without giving away any spoilers.

Here are some things I can tell you about Unicorn. It’s funny, although the light-heartedness does give way to something deeper in the second half. I can also tell you it’s about emotional relationships rather than a simple threesome (if indeed a threesome is ever simple). And, even if it is about more than physical gratification, there is nevertheless much frank- and indeed filthy- talk about sex.

Having said that, if you were hoping to see these beloved stars in the buff, or were perhaps dreading the embarrassment of seeing bits of them that are normally covered up, there are no depictions of sex. They don’t even undress, well, Nicola Walker does take her shoes off. Frankly, it’s shocking enough to hear Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan talking about sex in explicit four letter words- yes, even that word- without them actually doing it.

Our middle-aged couple still say they love one another but wonder if a third person might spice things up their sex life. Fortunately Polly, played by Nicola Walker at her most hesitant and nervously sensual, is a lecturer, and one of her mature but much younger than her students has the hots for her. And she feels the same.

Normally, if that’s the right word in this unusual situation, it’s difficult to find a young woman who wants a relationship with an older couple. (I’m not saying this from personal experience- it’s what we’re told in the play.) As rare as a unicorn, in fact. But fortunately, Kate, played by Erin Doherty, is interested, and so the story begins. The very word ‘unicorn’ may suggest a fantasy but we go with it because this is a scintillating script by Mike Bartlett, and these three actors, under James Macdonald’s direction, know exactly what to do with it.  Their comic timing is exquisite.

Erin Doherty nails the younger woman: frank, matter-of-fact and with a clear picture of what she wants. She talks loud and without hesitation. The generational gap is portrayed well. Stephen Mangan as Nick is especially good as an older man tying himself in knots as he tries to contain what he fears is stereotypical masculinity. He and Nicola Walker capture that respectful tone of the woke London middle class who are aware they shouldn’t offend or take risks, so beat about the bush and constantly retreat from what they really want.  ‘It’s entirely possible that on some level this is inappropriate,’ says Polly to Kate. Even when they kiss, all three contain any passion they might feel in favour of conversation.

So we journey through the first half continuing a will-they-won’t-they situation. At this point, I think I can add something to my plot summary. It might be a spoiler but I doubt you imagine this prevarication, funny as it is, could possibly continue for over two hours. In the second half, they do get together, but only after some significant turning points in all their lives.  We find that 30 year old Kate is increasingly the driving force in the potential three-way relationship, and we realise why. She comes to represent not only hope for the throuple but also a wider hope for humanity.

Nicola Walker & Erin Doherty in Unicorn. Photo: Marc Brenner

As we move into the dynamics of the menage-a-trois, and its ups and downs (no innuendo intended), the humour subsides a little in favour of more philosophical conversations. To summarise: we live in dangerous times, when the world and our bodies are threatened by pollution. We’re brought up on Disney happy-ever-after movies and bicycles made for two. So our primary choice of heteronormative coupling is tied up with this failed society. A willingness to try new, honest ways of living and loving could be the path to happiness and a better world.

It’s clear from the start that this particular arrangement is so rare that it is close to a fairy tale, a fairy tale that even features a unicorn. Then again,  children’s fairy tales are a way of tackling the challenges offered by a world that can seem dark and forbidding. I don’t want to say whether their happiness ultimately comes from their being all together or working out different kinds of relationships, but I certainly came out of the theatre feeling upbeat about the world.

Miriam Buether’s set is half of a dome, the other half being in effect the fourth wall. It occasionally concertinas up at the back to allow an entrance. The impression is that the three are contained within a cocoon, thus adding to the feeling that they are in a fantasy world. The backdrop is bathed in different colours, and sometimes Natasha Chivers‘ lighting design casts multiple shadows. I’m not sure if that’s to indicate the multiple possibilities of modern relationships or more mundanely to make the image of two or three people on stage more visually stimulating. There are few props- chairs or a sofa to sit on, a bed to lie on. Refreshingly, both designer and director take a discreet approach that lets the actors to do their job.

I certainly wouldn’t go see Unicorn if you’re hoping for an erotic evening, but if you take it as a fantasy delve into changing attitudes to relationships, then it’s both interesting and funny. If nothing else, it will get you talking, and who knows what that might lead to.

Unicorn can be seen at the Garrick Theatre until 26 April 2025.

Paul paid for his ticket.

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

 

 

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Theatre Review – The Autobiography of a Cad – Watermill

Ian Hislop’s satirical comedy lacks bite

★★★
James Mack and Mitesh Soni in The Autobiography of a Cad. Photo: Matt Crockett

I always look forward to seeing a play by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, but on this occasion I was disappointed. Their adaptation of The Autobiography of a Cad, a 1930s satire about a self-centred lying politician with a public school background, may have modern parallels but it didn’t seem like a play for today. Fortunately it did feature an outstanding lead performance. Keep watching and I’ll tell you all about it.

Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye and star of Have I Got News For You, and Nick Newman have almost made a speciality of paying homage to past satirists. Wipers Times told of First World War soldiers who mocked their commanders,  Spike was a tribute to Spike Milligan and The Goons who sent up the establishment, Trial By Laughter concerned the early 19th century government’s attempt to censor satirist William Hone. All of those, like their new offering, were premiered at The Watermill.
The author of The Autobiography of a Cad, A G MacDonell, was a popular satirist in the 1920s and 30s. All satire is vulnerable to the passing of time and its targets, and he is now almost forgotten. In the case of this book, though, you can see the appeal of revisiting it. It dates from a time when Britain was run by a self-serving corrupt elite who inherited their positions irrespective of ability. You would think that by the twentieth century this had long been replaced by a meritocracy. Except when you realise how many members of the last government came from wealthy backgrounds and had gone through Eton and Oxbridge.
More than that, the subject of this particular story is not simply incompetent or old fashioned, in the way of say Colonel Blimp. The Cad, whose name is Edward Fox-Ingleby, is entitled, self-centred, and misogynistic. He lies his way out of trouble and cheats his way to the top. There’s no explicit nod in the play to any modern self-serving mendacious politician, but you may well be reminded of a few.

James Mack powers the show

Rhiannon Neads and James Mack in The Autobiography of a Cad. Photo: Matt Crockett

The irony of the original ‘autobiography’ speaks for itself but, for dramatic purposes, this play puts the Cad in the process of writing it. This task inevitably involves rewriting history, which two assistants question and challenge with a mixture of bemusement and contempt.

Fox relives moments from his life in which he encounters various friends, colleagues and lovers, and proceeds to stab them in the back. He moves through his boorish misbehaviour as a student, to his mistreatment of the staff on his estate, to avoiding front line fighting in the First World War, to pursuing a political career, all the while carrying on affairs.

James Mack is a regular at The Watermill and always good value. His wide smile with even white teeth makes him perfect for this role as a Teflon politician. He exudes a smarmy charm, while conjuring wide-eyed panic when  he thinks he’s been caught out.  His bravura performance powers the show.

Two actors take on all the other characters. Rhiannon Neads flits from the shocked assistant Miss Appleby to the snarling ghost of Granny Ingleby to sundry girlfriends and wives, while Mitesh Soni is the sneering assistant Mr Collins, the downtrodden farm worker Williams and many powerful but naive men.

Designer Ceci Calf‘s set uses wood panelling and oil-painted portraits to suggest appropriately a Gentlemen’s Club, while cleverly concealing the various props that will be needed.
Each scene is funny in itself but the pattern is always the same: a threat to the Cad, followed by his escape using lies or bribes, then on to the next until it feels relentless. It needs an edit: if nothing else, some of what is in effect a series of sketches could be cut to avoid the diminishing returns.
Having said that, the Cad’s character and behaviour are at times hilarious, and director Paul Hart keeps the pace moving for over two hours.
The Autobiography of a Cad can be seen at the Watermill Theatre until 22 March 2025. Tickets from https://www.watermill.org.uk
Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre
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Theatre review: The Years at The Harold Pinter Theatre

Top class acting makes ordinary life extraordinary


★★★★

Anjli Mohindra, Deborah Findlay, Gina Mckee, Romola Garai & Harmony-Rose Bremner in The Years. Photo: Helen Murray

The Years was originally a book by a Nobel Prize winning French woman Annie Ernaux. It was adapted by a Norwegian woman Eline Arbo who directed it while working with a Dutch company. She has now brought the production to London in an English translation by Stephanie Bain. There were moments when I wondered whether the story of an ordinary life was worth all that pan European effort, but in the end it was the acting that sold it to me.

All the actors have familiar faces. Deborah Findlay, Gina McKee and Romola Garai have appeared regularly on stage and screen for decades. Anjli Mohindra and Harmony Rose-Bremner are young, up-and-coming actors who are already building big reputations.
All have the same ability to convey characters through the subtlest of gestures and expressions, and to communicate with confidence when they are centre stage. These are qualities essential to performing in this play, where the actors play the same person at different stages of her life, and the rest of the time take on the multiple other characters who are part of the story.
Harmony Rose-Bremner is Annie as a child fascinated by the family around her. Then Anjli Mohindra takes over as the joyous adolescent discovering, among other things, masturbation. And I must say I have never seen such an enthusiastic depiction of the act on stage.
In the other half of her life, as the middle-aged Annie, Gina McKee, with her trademark knowing smile, observes a new generation of adults and has the maturity to enjoy her own life more- especially the sex. Then in old age, Deborah Findlay takes over as the actual storyteller, looking at the present and all that has happened with a benign smile. If anyone could be said to take the honours in this masterclass of acting, it would be Romola Garai who takes on the mantle of the fresh young adult, learning about the harsh realities of relationships.
And it is quite an epic, taking a provincial French woman from childhood to old age. But what happens to her isn’t exceptional, with the important exception that the lives of ordinary women are rarely told on stage or anywhere else for that matter.
It gains much of its force from being told against the background of the second half of the twentieth century. In other words, it becomes a celebatory story of Women in our time or, depending on our age, the time of our parents and grandparents. So we run through post-Second World War austerity to the growth of consumerism, 1960s rebellion, the sexual liberation encouraged by the Pill, the triumph of free market capitalism, the beginning of a new millennium and 9/11. Lists of brand names and new consumer devices like the Walkman form a motif throughout the play.
The woman is first seen as a young girl, the youngest in the family, and ends up a grandmother, the oldest. In the course of the play, she discovers her sexuality, has non-consensual sex, an unwanted pregnancy, babies, a divorce, more pleasurable sex, copes with teenage children, and becomes an empty nester. The exploration of a life from it all being ahead to being behind is fascinating, and salutary. Annie describes how the memories ‘will all vanish at the same time, like the millions of images that lay behind the foreheads of the grandparents, dead for half a century, and of the parents, also dead…And one day we’ll appear in our children’s memories, among their grandchildren and people not yet born.’
Some of the events are upsetting, such as a harrowing illegal abortion (the play was stopped the night I was there because a member of the audience fainted, which I gather is not unusual), some are funny as when they all join in doing stretches with varying degrees of success as part of a Jane Fonda style fitness session.
But, in itself, this is not enough. Not because it’s about a woman but because  a cushioned middle-class life is just not that interesting. It can be: even the most ordinary life has conflicts, challenges, threats, difficult relationships. But in this story, such things are deliberately played down. The alienating way of telling this trip of a lifetime, in which an actor describes what’s going on even as it happens, and with the characters around her almost anonymous, anaesthetises us from the dramas of her life.

The trip of a lifetime

Where we all gain, male and female, is in the story of time itself, and the way our memories remain with us, making the past always present. This is reinforced by all five incarnations, in the form of the actors, remaining on stage throughout. Another motif concerns the taking of photographs that hold one moment in time for a lifetime and beyond.
The story might still seem a trifling thing but for the performances and the creative elements of the production. The actors are all at the top of their game. They wear roughly the same costumes throughout and have few props but, because they speak with passion and mime so convincingly, we believe they are schoolchildren, disco dancing, naked in the bedroom, and so on.
In Juul Dekker’s sparse set, white cloths that represent the background to the photos, are rolled up to act as a baby or become a tablecloth, and end up, having been stained by wine, blood and other fluids of life, hanging as the backcloths to the life we have witnessed. Then, there’s the music. Harmony Rose-Bremner and Romola Garai sing beautifully and add extra depth to the moods of joy and sadness.
I don’t think the play carries the weight it aspires to, but the acting more than makes up for that.

The Years can be seen at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 24 January until 24 April 2025.  Buy tickets direct from the theatre.

Paul was given a review ticket by the producer

Watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

Click here for a roundup of reviews of The Years

If you’ve seen The Years at the Harold Pinter or the Almeida Theatre, please add your review and rating below

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Reviews Roundup: Brie Larson in Elektra

Another Greek tragedy for a Hollywood star

DUKE OF YORK’S THEATRE
Brie Larson in Elektra. Photo: Helen Murray

Another day, another Hollywood star in a Sophocles tragedy given a major overhaul by a dynamic young director. And if you thought the critics’ average rating of 2.9★ for Rami Malek in Oedipus, wait until you get to the bottom of this roundup to see what they collectively thought of Brie Larson in Elektra. Daniel Fish, whose dark reinterpretation of Oklahoma! had plenty of fans, went full weird in the opinion of many of the reviewers. Brie Larson hid her acting talent beneath a lot of shouting and loud speakers. Only Stockard Channing emerged unscathed.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (4★) continued to be a fan of Hollywood stars in extreme interpretations of Sophocles’ classics. Having been one of the few critics to give Rami Malek’s Oedipus four stars, she duplicated her rating but this time was a lonely voice.  Here’s part of her commendation: ‘Part spoken, part sung through in recitative and partly shouted in fury, this is a lyrical, avant garde creation, like a long lamentation, bare in its staging and emotions.’ ‘The anger is never shrill or flatly pitched – her delivery captures not only anger but also grief, resembling Hamlet when at her most melancholy. It is a magnetic performance, fearless for a West End debut.’

Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (3★) found  ‘the production, full of strangeness and insight, feels half-baked, as if all its elements haven’t quite had time to gel. It simultaneously compels attention and frustrates it.’ She described how ‘Lines are spoken out rather than to one another, formalised and ritualistic rather than naturalistic…The effect is to turn the piece into an abstract meditation rather than drama, a gloss on Elektra not the thing itself. I rather loved it, but it never quite becomes the sum of its parts.’

Olivia Rook for LondonTheatre (3★) described Brie Larson thus: ‘her detached, reflective performance style makes it difficult to feel a connection with her character. Her voice is deliberately flat, which often jars, particularly when she is reunited with her brother and her reaction is borderline emotionless.’

Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski (3★) said, ‘The biggest problem for me was the use of Anne Carson’s poetic but starchy 2001 verse adaptation – there is some mordant wit in there but I’m not convinced the formality of the verse helped the drama.’

‘It’s haunting, punchily feminist and perverse, all at once’ said Alice Saville in The Independent  (3★). She continued: ‘this staging is full of a mesmerising but near-stagnant stillness’ She concluded, ‘It’s a fascinating experiment, one that’s beautiful, but ultimately impenetrable.’

Tim Bano in The Standard honed his sarcasm: ‘It’s not entirely clear if it was Elektra, or an exercise in alienation. A 75-minute test as to whether an audience can keep an open mind.’ He skewered the director: ‘It’s directed (boy is it directed) by the experimental American director Daniel Fish…(he) doesn’t let a single line go un-weirded.’ He ended, ‘“Let me go mad in my own way,” Larson cries – and that’s the whole show, really. Always baffling, never boring, and completely mad in its own way.’ No stars given, which may be intentional, but I’ve put it down as 2★.

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe (2★) was damning: ‘It is so self-consciously stylised, so artful and so devoid of any genuine sense of humanity in extremis that it’s more likely to provoke a yawn or a weary eye roll than pity or terror. You sense that it’s straining for austere elegance and intellectual heft; it comes off simply as sterile and insufferably pretentious.’ Matt Wolf for The Arts Desk (2★) said, ‘The hipster vibe might seem to invite us all to this pathological party only to leave us on the threshold awaiting some way in.’

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish (2★) wasn’t impressed: ‘what gets confused swiftly is where our attention should fall. The problem of over-emphasis is redoubled by Larson’s jolting, forceful delivery into a microphone, sometimes with added distortion and with an almost tic-like need to amplify and draw out every use of the word “no”.’ He wasn’t entirely negative: ‘The laurels go to Stockard Channing (Greece is the word…), giving us a Clytemnestra of stately bearing and stirring defensiveness and lending the pivotal mother-daughter battle an urgency, danger and truthfulness.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (2) recalled happier times at the theatre: ‘Some shows you walk home from humming the songs or cooing at the acting. After Elektra, which gives us Brie Larson as a punk princess agitating against something rotten in the state of ancient Argos like some shaven-haired proto-Hamlet, you go home still boggling at the misguided avant-gardery of it all.’ His last words offered an olive branch to the star: ‘Larson is clearly a gifted, authoritative performer. But she is hemmed into a concept that makes her Elektra only a raging bore.’

Describing it as a ‘droning dud’, Broadway World’s Alexander Cohen (1★) had many questions: ‘Why is there a dangling blimp? Why is there a paint canon sporadically spritzing the chorus? Why does Larson wail atonally like a brat-like banshee into a microphone without any momentum to propel her? It took about three minutes for me to realise that it’s not meant to make sense. This is theatre where the #vibe rules supreme.’

Critics’ Average Rating 2.5★

Value Rating 31 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Elektra continues at the Duke of York’s Theatre until 12 April 2025. Buy direct from the theatre

If you’ve seen Elektra at the Duke of York;’s Theatre, please add your review and rating below

 

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Reviews Roundup- Oedipus with Rami Malek & Indira Varma

Rami Malek’s performance is a tragedy

old vic
Rami Malek and Indira Varma in Oedipus. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Two new versions of Sophocles’ Oedipus went head-to-head either side of Christmas- Robert Icke‘s which starred Mark Strong and Lesley Manville versus this newly opened production at the Old Vic starring Rami Malek and Indira Varma. We have a winner, and it wasn’t the one featuring Freddie Mercury. Hardly any critic actually liked Malek’s style of acting and there was little praise for the adaptation by Ella Hickson. There were contrasting opinions about the production in which co-director Matthew Warchus conceded time and space to the loud sound and frantic choreography of Heofesh Schecter. It was, you might say, a Marmite decision. Only co-star Indira Varma was universally liked by the critics.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

For a change, I’m going to present the reviews in reverse order of enthusiasm for the show. The most critical came from Claire Allfree in the Telegraph (2★). She began ‘The question of whether Rami Malek can actually act has always hung over this most idiosyncratic of performers.’ Her answer? ‘ Malek is almost entirely at sea with Oedipus, his curious tic-ridden delivery strangling almost every word at birth.’ He was, she said, ‘like an unholy blend of Trump at his most disingenuous and Biden at his most incoherent.’ She doesn’t stop there: ‘his relationship with Varma, who outclasses everyone on stage, is consistently jarring…it resembles a confused arrangement between two people of almost entirely different species’.’One has to wonder,’ she pondered, ‘if the craze for celebrity casting has this week reached its nadir.’

The i-paper‘s Fiona Mountford (2★) thought ‘Malek speaks in a strange drawl that suggests he has toothache’ and described him as ‘all adrift in a bewilderingly centrifugal production’. She wasn’t keen on the use of dance either, saying it was ‘undoubtedly powerful and emotive, but the trouble with these lengthy, wordless episodes is that they fatally disrupt the momentum of what should be the undiluted hurtle of Sophocles’ storytelling’.

Alice Saville in The Independent (2★) was no more enamoured: ‘Ultimately this Oedipus is one for contemporary dance fans…theatre lovers hoping for a coherent take on this often-told story should seek elsewhere.’ ‘It’s gorgeous to look at,’ she said,  ‘but there’s more tension in a single chorus member’s bent finger than in its whole slack plot.’

Clive Davis in The Times (3★) was barely more enthusiastic but he did find an extra star. The text, he suggested, ‘For long stretches, in fact, sounds more like the work of an AI programme commissioned to generate soap opera chat laced with the sort of noirish boilerplate that would sit nicely in a Tarantino film.’ For him, Rami Malek gave a ‘curiously stilted central performance…his rigid facial expressions evoking all those socialite millionaires who’ve gone in for a few too many injections of Botox.’ Having praised the sound, dance, set and lighting, he damned it with faint praise: ‘We can’t help being drawn into a harsh, elemental world. If only it had a more charismatic presence at its centre.’

Dave Fargnoli for The Stage (3★) began, ‘Bursting with bold visuals and angsty, unsubtle performances, this ambitious, often incoherent take on Sophocles’ classic myth puts style firmly ahead of substance’ but in the end he managed to winkle out some substance: ‘Indira Varma gives a consummate, focused performance as Jocasta, grounding the production with heartfelt naturalism.’

‘The opening is dazzling,’ said Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (3★). Unfortunately, ‘it can’t sustain the intensity it promises. By the end, there’s not much catharsis and without that, there’s not much tragedy.’ She pointed out that Malek’s ‘lack of emotion is emphasised by a script that chooses to offer an unusually tentative ending rather than searing revelation and despair.’

The Mail‘s Patrick Marmion (3★) found that Rami Malek’s ‘inward looking method acting is not well suited to ritualistic staging that’s meant to evoke Greek religious cults from antiquity’. He also berated ‘Ella Hickson’s wooden adaptation’.

Inevitably there were unfavourable comparisons with the recently closed Oedipus directed by Robert Icke. Take this from Tim Bano in The Standard (3★): ‘Where Icke’s was all sleekness and surgical precision, this one…takes Aristotle’s unities and rubs them in the old philosopher’s face. Why have unity when you can have the mad and slightly ridiculous chaos of several different creative visions squeezed into 100 minutes?’ He explained in more detail: ‘Hickson’s doing one thing, Warchus another, Schechter a third, Malek something else besides, possibly on another planet.’ Talking of the Hollywood Oscar winner: ‘Sinister and expressionless, he delivers every line in a strangely mannered way, and every word sounds like one long vowel.’

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar (4★) was one of the few genuinely enthusiastic reviewers. She liked the dance and the loud music and even Rami Malek’s performance: ‘He brings outsider vibes to Oedipus – speaking in an elusive American drawl, adopting the mantle of leadership like a haunted robot.’

Perhaps most impressed was Alexander Cohen for BroadwayWorld (4★). He was immediately taken by ‘a frenetic whirlwind of theatre and dance …that returns the power back to the people’ (i.e. the Greek chorus). As for Rami Malek: ‘It takes time to acclimatise to his slinky weirdness and syrupy southern drawl. But Oedipus is supposed to be an outsider welcomed in, the tendrils of his otherness bleeding deep into his paranoid psyche. Ella Hickson’s wily adaptation hints at scathing insecurity bubbling beneath his calm demeanour which Malek subtly preys upon in his angular mannerisms.’

Critics’ average rating: 2.9★

Value Rating 34 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Oedipus can be seen at the Old Vic Theatre until 29 March. Buy tickets direct form the theatre.

If you’ve seen Oedipus at the Old Vic Theatre, please add your review and rating below

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