Critics disagree about play on womanhood
Almeida theatre
Chris Bush, best known for Standing At The Sky’s Edge, has written a play with music that draws on her experience as a trans woman. It asks ‘what is womanhood?’ and tells the story of two women, one born a woman, the other trans. The second half moves into magic realism involving an alien as a metaphor for a trans woman. The critics took very different views- many admired the story and the poetic writing, while others thought it saccharine and confusing.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
Dave Fargnoli of The Stage (5★) said, ‘Bittersweet, uplifting and profoundly enlightening, this deeply felt drama from Chris Bush brings remarkable clarity to some knotty and tremendously contentious topics.’
Unexpectedly, perhaps, it was the anti-woke Telegraph (4★) that provided one of the most positive reviews. Dzifa Benson described it as ‘a thoughtful and ultimately moving examination of womanhood and its implications – personal, familial, romantic and societal – in a world lacking gender parity and full of stereotypical expectations.’ Ms Benson, a poet herself, talked of ‘the poetic tendencies of Bush’s language’ and said, ‘the music works multiple duties here by heightening emotions, moving the story forward, containing the poetry and counterpointing the beautiful singing in close harmonies by the eight-strong female cast.’ The shocked readers’ comments remind us why Chris Bush wrote the play.
Emma John for The Guardian (4★) said it ‘brims with humour and compassion’ and called it ‘a powerful reminder of how theatre lets us live beyond our own bodies’. Rachel Halliburton writing at TheArtsDesk (4★) was impressed: ‘The visceral emotion, the poetry and the wry humour about the quirks of humanity sweep you through a story that’s as heart-breaking as it’s funny.’ She spoke of her ‘fascination with where each character’s story is taking them’.
Chris Omaweng for LondonTheatre1 (3★) wasn’t as fascinated as the previous reviewer: ‘I didn’t come away with any takeaway messages. Everyone seemed to be getting on with life, and so I came away thinking I had better just carry on and get on with mine.’
‘What a quietly radical act it is to lay a trans and cis experience side by side, and say look: this is what it is to be a woman,’ claimed Kate Wyver for Time Out (3★). She went on, ‘Though at times the storytelling feels heavy-handed, with lyrics pointing out the obvious and messages overstated, in other moments the story challenges us with knotty, thorny, nuance.’
The Standard’s Nick Curtis (3★) appreciated that ‘Though dramatically uneven and necessarily inconclusive, it’s very thoughtful, which is welcome in this era of yammering culture-war hatred.’
Alexander Cohen for BroadwayWorld (3★) described how ‘Otherland playfully melts into a swirling magical realist standoff between gothic and sci-fi.’ He advised, ‘It’s not perfect, but embrace it’s bittersweetness, especially when the sweetness triumphs.’
Dominic Maxwell in The Times (3★) praised the actors: ‘Jade Anouka is outstanding…Fizz Sinclair impresses’. As for the play, ‘it ends up taking us somewhere memorably surprising and satisfying’.
Julia Rank at LondonTheatre (3★) had this to say: ‘As a whole, it is an unwieldy and erratic piece of work but nevertheless big-hearted and watchable, bringing home the point that transgender people are not a threat and aren’t trying to “steal” anything’.
Miriam Sallon for WhatsOnStage (2★) complained ‘Chris Bush has attempted to grapple with the behemoth question of the zeitgeist: “What is womanhood?” Unfortunately, she stumbles under the weight of it, and her answer, in the end, is simply and unsatisfactorily: “it’s hard to define.”’ She had more to criticise: ‘This attempt at portraying a nourishing, knowing sisterhood is admirable, but the results are saccharine, and any individuality from the supporting characters is lost in a mulch of earnestness.’ For good measure, she also said, ‘The second half loses the plot, or rather it clings desperately to it, losing all subtlety of message’.
Steve Dinneen at City AM (2★) didn’t like it: ‘it’s a play with two gears: boring and daft, forever gravitating towards the saccharine and the melodramatic, eventually drowning in a paddling pool of good intentions.’
Critics’ Average Rating 3.3★
Overland can be seen at the Almeida Theatre until 15 March 2025. Click here to buy tickets direct
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