ajhlovestheatre

THE MAIDS 

by Jean Genet

new version written and directed by Kip Williams

Donmar Warehouse, London – until 29 November 2025

running time: 100 minutes no interval 

https://www.donmarwarehouse.com/whats-on/the-maids-fs5q

Swapping the narcissism and cruelty of Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray for the shadowy same-sex erotica and claustrophobic power games, but also cruelty, of Jean Genet’s esoteric 1947 three hander seems like a natural progression for Australian auteur Kip Williams.  If The Maids, reinvented for the social media generation, feels like a sequel to the recent The Picture of Dorian Gray in terms of bravura performances, slightly hysterical tone and, especially, in the use of visually astounding, groundbreaking tech, it’s a striking piece of theatre nonetheless. 

Allegedly inspired by an infamous real crime where a pair of sisters murdered their employer in 1933 France, the original Genet is more stream-of-consciousness fever dream than coherent drama. The previous Donmar production in 1997 directed by John Crowley rendered it fey and esoteric, while a starry Jamie Lloyd revival at Trafalgar Studios nearly a decade ago was flashy but still mystifying. Here it remains ritualistic and periodically ponderous, but informed and enlivened by the ultra modern approach. The themes of self-loathing, envy and repressed longings are a marriage made in heaven (or hell?) with the self-obsession and mutual ownership often engendered by social media use: a frequently impenetrable play is illuminated (literally and figuratively) and made wildly entertaining. 

In fact, Williams is only collaborating with one of his Dorian Gray creative colleagues here, costume designer Marg Horwell whose eye-popping art-meets-fashion creations for Madame – usually a socialite but here an image-obsessed online influencer – could teach the team over at The Devil Wears Prada a thing or two. The aesthetic is similar to the earlier show though, with actors features cartoonishly beautified or grotesquely modified via filters as their images are live-streamed up on the the vast mirrored screens dominating Rosanna Vize’s opulent, oppressive boudoir set.

Lydia Wilson and Phia Saban as ladys maids Claire and Solange, the role-playing sisters under the thumb of the histrionic Madame while plotting her demise and wishing for different existences, are haunting and impressive, alive to every change in pitch and emphasis in Williams’ new text which is going for essence of Genet rather than slavish adaptation. There are references to social media apps, vaping, Soho House, contemporary fashion designers, and so on ….the language is snappy, dirty, terse, and often extremely funny. 

The contrast between the heightened grandeur of Claire pretending to be Madame and her self-effacing throwaway delivery as her way less confident self is superbly managed by Wilson, whose combination of stridency and vulnerability tantalisingly suggests what a great performance her Blanche DuBois might have been in the Almeida-Paul Mescal Streetcar. Saban is every bit her equal, giving Solange a pragmatism and eagerness that is extremely affecting, the epitome of a young woman who constantly feels that she’s in the shadow of others.

Probably the longest shadow is that cast by Madame, a gorgeous monster in designer gear, played with spitfire precision and comic volatility by Yerin Ha. She’s a merciless parody of the new-ish breed of physically blessed, self-aggrandising young person rich and famous for reasons that nobody can quite fathom; a ghastly human being perhaps but, as presented and played here, fabulous theatrical company. It’s not hard to see why she fascinates the sisters so much, but it’s equally clear why they feel compelled to destroy her, in a fitting metaphor for the para social obsessions that are the downside of fandom and constant access via modern mass media.  

The garish artificial beauty of the world these women exist in belies the ugliness and banality lurking beneath; Williams and team capture this with a vicious brilliance that unsettles as it simultaneously delights. Zakk Hein’s video designs and the music score by DJ Walde, redolent of club beats then grand opera, are essential components in the shows success.

It’s a provocative reflection on our modern obsession with bright, shiny things….and Williams’ dazzling production is a very bright and shiny thing. It’s also lethal. Whether you find it exhilarating or simply exhausting will depend on your tolerance for all the posturing and digital trickery, and how much you can engage with the humanity of the deeply unhappy sisters. Personally, I found it unforgettable.

CROCODILE FEVER

by Meghan Tyler

directed by Mehmet Ergen

Arcola Theatre, London – until 22 November 2025

running time: 2 hours including interval 

https://www.arcolatheatre.com/event/crocodilefever/

If you can imagine a female-centric Northern Irish take on Sam Shepard or early Tracy Letts, add a splatter of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros and trace a rich, bloody vein back to the gorefests of Jacobean revenge tragedy, and you’ll have some idea of Meghan Tyler’s thrilling play, previously seen at the Edinburgh Festival in 2019. Crocodile Fever, in a note-perfect, full throttle staging by the Arcola’s artistic director Mehmet Ergen, is packed with surprises (some of them deeply unpleasant), jet black humour and, perhaps most impressively, a razor sharp clarity of vision and willingness to march into territory that fainter hearted theatre makers might blanch at. 

It’s the 1980s and two sisters from rural County Armagh have dealt with the tragic but suspicious death of their mother and the decades-long reign of terror by their misogynistic bully of a father, in markedly different ways. Alannah (Rachael Rooney) has become a recluse in the family home, caring for her now severely disabled but still vile father and developing chronic OCD, while Fianna (Tyler, as exciting an actor as they are a writer) joined the IRA and has done time in prison. Fianna’s return (via a broken window, naturally) throws Alannah into a complete tailspin. 

It’s great fun watching wild Fianna pushing (apparently) strait laced Alannah’s buttons, and the pugnacious dynamic between the siblings is brilliantly realised. Meanwhile their bed-bound father (Stephen Kennedy), now unable to use his legs thanks to a run-in with British soldiers, rumbles overhead. The staircase in Merve Yörük’s nicely kitschy farmhouse set suggests that he will make an appearance at some point, and when he does, it’s quite a moment. Kennedy is gloriously, repellently vivid.

The first act is biliously funny but also succeeds in achieving a real, palpable sense of danger. Remarkably, it also has moments that are genuinely touching as Fianna and Alannah try to reconnect over remembered pop tunes and phenomenally strong drinks. Tyler is like a firecracker in human form, and Rooney, although a trifle over-emphatic at first, finds colours and layers in Alannah’s issues and defensiveness that feel authentic. These performances sizzle.

If act one is a riot, the even more visceral but less satisfactory second half really snaps the tether. Nothing quite prepares you for what’s to come but Tyler seems to be making valid, if not particularly original, points about women being the repeated victims of war and male aggression, and that the capacity for female rage is infinite. No spoilers here but suffice it to say you may not be able to believe your eyes and ears. If it strays into the preposterous, it does, ultimately, feel of apiece with what we’ve seen before, and it’s technically astonishing (special mentions are due to puppet designer Rachael Canning, and the lighting and sound contributions of Richard Williamson and Benjamin Grant respectively). 

Powered by vengeful rage, 80s bangers, industrial quantities of booze, Taytos (yes, the Irish brand of potato crisps) and a chainsaw, Crocodile Fever (the title will make sense when you watch the play) is essential viewing if you want to see a playwright giving a two fingered salute to the limits of imagination, but with potty-mouthed wit and theatrical panache. It isn’t perfect, and it’s certainly not for the faint-of-heart but it makes a lot other plays currently on offer seem awfully safe. As an impressed but bewildered Fianna says of Alannah’s hilariously eccentric analysis of ‘Africa’, the Toto hit single from 1982 and one of the songs the sisters bond over, “that’s genius, I mean, it’s mental but it’s genius”. Well, quite.

THE LINE OF BEAUTY 

based on the novel by Alan Hollinghurst

adapted by Jack Holden 

directed by Michael Grandage 

Almeida Theatre, London – until 29 November 2025

running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval 

https://almeida.co.uk/whats-on/the-line-of-beauty/

It’s been a while since I’ve seen something that so clearly has ‘West End transfer’ written all over it. Michael Grandage’s production of this adaptation by Jack (Cruise, Kenrex) Holden of the bestselling novel by Alan Hollinghurst (which already had an acclaimed BBC TV version back in 2006) sold out at the Almeida almost as soon as tickets became available. Admirers of Grandage’s spare yet glossy house style are unlikely to be disappointed, but fans of the book might be dismayed at the simplification of The Line of Beauty’s myriad complexities.

With Kenrex (transferring to The Other Palace at Christmas and under no account to be missed) and Cruise, Holden has proven himself a potent, highly original theatrical voice, but his work here feels more like that of a writer for hire. He’s provided a fleet, perhaps inevitably episodic, distillation of Hollinghurst’s novel, skittering between an ultra-privileged 1980s London with forays into its gay underbelly and rural, sun-drenched France. It covers all the plot points and principal characters, and is tremendously watchable, but doesn’t sear or devastate the way one might expect from a piece chronicling the fatal havoc AIDS wreaked on the penultimate decade of the twentieth century. 

It doesn’t help that the central figure Nick Guest, the middle class gay aesthete embroiled in the family life of upper crust Conservative MP Gerald Fedden and his wife Rachel having befriended their son Toby (Leo Suter) at Oxford University, is strangely unknowable on stage. Without the inner life a novel can afford, or the intensity of the screen which allowed us to experience Dan Stevens’ Nick at close quarters, there is a sort of blankness at the centre of the story. A lot of his actions, such as the dumping of Alistair Nwachukwu’s cockily charming working class Leo after a declaration of love, are unlikely to elicit much sympathy, and neither does his obsession with beauty – human and artistic – which is only expressed fitfully in the play. It’s not the fault of Jasper Talbot who gives a technically accomplished account of the role, mining it for as much empathy and humour as the script allows, but Nick remains out of reach and hard to like.

Certain scenes, such as Nick’s final, separate showdowns with Gerald and Rachel (Charles Edwards and Claudia Harrison respectively, both superlative) blaze into theatrical life, and there’s a wonderfully awkward comic sequence where Nick has dinner at home with Leo’s ultra-religious mother (Doreene Blackstock, delightful). A lot of the time though, the exchanges sound like prose from a book rather than legit dramatic dialogue, which occasionally leads to some rather stilted acting. 

There’s fabulous work though from Artie Froushan as the ridiculously wealthy, coke-snorting closet job who seduces Nick with his money and connections, and Hannah Morrish doubling as a comically inept budding actress and a disenchanted political secretary. Robert Portal’s boorish, insensitive, homophobic Badger, wildly rich from a career in asset stripping and a close family friend of the Feddens, is the epitome of clichéd Tory baddie, but is played to the hilt. Francesca Amewudah-Rivers brings a lovely presence to Leo’s all-seeing sister, and Ellie Bamber is appropriately volatile as the youngest and most unstable of the Fedden brood, who becomes Nick’s biggest ally.

The sense of gay men driven to furtiveness and extremes of bad behaviour by the lack of acceptance from the mainstream is a potent theme, but the characters are so unsympathetic that we find ourselves watching passively rather than becoming emotionally involved. Compared with, say, Mathew López’s epic The Inheritance, or Larry Kramer’s pivotal The Normal Heart, The Line Of Beauty seems a bit tepid, and watching wealthy people disporting in luxurious surroundings feels tone deaf in 2025, despite the erudition of the language and the slickness of Grandage’s staging, punctuated by invigorating blasts of 1980s pop bangers.

As if to point up the artificiality of it all, Christopher Oram’s set is dominated by a large, ornate white frame reminiscent both of a proscenium arch and the portico of the Kensington Palace Garden mansion in which much of the story takes place. The whole show looks great, Howard Hudson’s inventive lighting working wonders in transforming the space into the multiple locations. 

It’s a decent piece of entertainment which strikes an appropriate balance between the intellectual and the sensationalist, but it seldom cuts as deep as it should, coming across as an elegant potboiler with artistic pretensions, swirlingly staged. Undoubtedly a crowd pleaser and a big fat hit. 

THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES

by Richard Greenberg

directed by Blanche McIntyre 

Hampstead Theatre, London – until 22 November 2025

running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval 

https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2025/the-assembled-parties/

Early on in Richard Greenberg’s 2013 The Assembled Parties, now receiving a belated UK premiere at Hampstead, a wealthy American Democrat complains about the incoming Republican President, and no, they’re not decrying the wildly divisive current administration. Tracy-Ann Oberman’s tough-talking, histrionic/neurotic Long Island Jewish Faye is referring to the arrival in the White House of former film star Ronald Reagan back at the dawn of the 1980s when the first half of this Tony-nominated family dramedy is set. Fast forward twenty years to act two, it’s 2020 and loquacious, fabulous Faye is at it again, but this time the source of her ire is incoming President George W Bush, another Republican leader.

Greenberg’s talky but rewarding play, situated entirely in the Bascov family’s palatial, rent-stabilised Upper West Side apartment at Christmas two decades apart, isn’t an overtly political piece but uses discussion of the current President as a handy indicator of historical period and the source of some humour (“Republican Jews, what is that?” snorts Faye derisively, “it’s like ‘skinny fat people’”). Essentially it’s an elevated hybrid of sitcom and soap opera, laced with an elegant, vivid use of language and some gloriously sassy humour.

Although Jewish, the Bascovs are so assimilated and such quintessential New Yorkers that they celebrate Christmas in high style, and the curtain rises on fragrant lady of the house Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt in an entrancing London stage debut) welcoming Sam Marks’ Jeff, the eager, impressed college friend of her golden boy son Scott.  We also encounter Julie’s go-getting husband Ben (Daniel Abelson, excellent), their sickly, bed-bound four year old Timmy, and Scott himself (Alexander Marks), also clearly unwell and in thrall to a feisty, unseen girlfriend. It’s enlivened considerably by the arrival of Oberman (an actor with a proven and unrivalled ability to take a scene by the scruff of its neck and revitalise it) as Ben’s sister Faye and a suitably grizzled David Kennedy as her thuggish husband Mort, in from New Jersey for the holidays.

Played out on a slowly revolving stage (nicely evocative design by James Cotterill), the first act of Blanche McIntyre’s production is stronger on atmosphere than pace, and you may find yourself heading out into the interval full of questions. Why is Mort blackmailing Ben for an heirloom necklace that is likely worthless? Why does Faye and Ben’s mother apparently hate her? What’s with Jeff’s vitriolic phone conversation with his own mother? What’s wrong with Scott?

Stick with it though, as the second half is an absolute beauty. It’s infinitely richer, not least because it centres on Julie and Faye (several of the men are dead, reinforcing the belief that women really are the stronger sex) and their longstanding friendship. Most, not all, of the questions posed by the first act are resolved, but there are insights into the nature of parenthood, about kindness and about how people can show up for you when you don’t necessarily expect it, that are pure bittersweet gold. Cotterill’s set opens out and becomes more specific, as though to suggest that the passage of time imparts more information and detail. Furthermore,  Oberman and Westfeldt’s performances become even more glorious. 

If Faye is the more flamboyant creation, and Oberman, looking like a million bucks, inhabits her completely and irresistibly, Julie is fascinating and often more surprising. A beloved figure that the other characters seek to protect at all costs but who is savvier than she appears, she’s almost a Manhattanite version of Arthur Miller’s Kate Keller but with a wider array of eccentricities and hang-ups. 

Greenberg gives her a charmingly baroque way of expressing herself, befitting of a former actress (“So lovely, Christmas, although you find all the dying tends to accelerate around now. And of course there’s Bing Crosby, he’s a tribulation, don’t you find? You can’t escape him”), but a couple of sharp edges to offset the sweetness. “A cheerful nature is an utterly ruthless thing,” she informs an understandably enchanted Jeff, “I’m the most ruthless woman you’ll ever meet.” Westfeldt catches every note and nuance.

There’s still a slight hesitancy to McIntyre’s staging that will probably iron out as the run continues, and The Assembled Parties is likely to frustrate anybody looking for action rather than talk and mood. Within its own (deceptively ambitious) confines however, it’s a work of considerable warmth and depth, a witty elegy for a way of New York living that feels like it’s teetering on the brink of extinction. It’s one that stays with you after the performance, and this London debut is a lovely way of commemorating Richard Greenberg, one of America’s most prolific and insightful modern playwrights, following his death this summer. Vahksin.

 

 

FANNY

by Calum Finlay

directed by Katie-Ann McDonough

Kings Head Theatre, London – until 15 November 2025

running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval 

https://kingsheadtheatre.com/whats-on/fanny-qft1

It’s funny…you wait your whole life for a show about prodigious musically talented sisters of classical composers being overlooked in favour of their less gifted, but now more famous, younger brothers due to historical sexism, and two come along within the same year. Sarcasm aside, it’s curious how 2025 has already given us Saving Mozart, the glossily produced but DOA tuner about Wolfgang Amadeus’ neglected sibling Nannerl this summer at the Other Palace, and now a London transfer for the Watermill’s smash hit Fanny, a merry, music-infused comedy commemorating Mendelssohn’s older sister whose composition ‘Italien’ was a favourite of Queen Victoria’s. Of course that long running monarch believed it was the work of Fanny’s prodigal brother Felix. 

Calum Finlay’s script is often laugh-out-loud hilarious – the drollness and invention of Mischief, one of the founding members of which, Charlie Russell, plays the eponymous heroine here, only with more heart – but also meticulously researched. In between the gags (some inspired and others groan-worthy), the wordplay, and the frenzied comic business, Finlay provides a lot of biographical meat and detail. There are also some trenchant observations on early nineteenth century womanhood and the impossibility of a woman in the Romantic era having an independent career in the arts  (“we can only play exactly what we’re handed” ruefully comments Fanny’s mother Lea, herself a talented musician).

There’s even a superbly orchestrated (pun intended) bit of audience participation where the onlookers joyfully become the musicians inside Fanny’s imagination. It’s an inspired moment in an evening brimming with them. Russell marshals the crowd brilliantly and elsewhere delivers a funny, rebellious, resourceful heroine with a touching sadness behind the eyes. It’s a glorious performance, more nuanced and layered than any of her Mischief appearances to date, blending high precision comedy playing with a genuine depth, and a wondrous physicality (watching her “conduct” is mesmerising).

Director Katie-Ann McDonough and writer Finlay have surrounded her with quality. West End regular Kim Ismay is sheer camp joy as the Mendelssohn’s snobbish mama, pitched half way between Mrs Malaprop and a Teutonic version of Jane Austen’s Mrs Bennet, also doubling as Queen Victoria and a deeply disapproving innkeeper. Equally glorious is Danielle Phillips as the perpetually furious, boxing-obsessed other daughter, determined to get Fanny married off so that she can then in turn be free. Daniel Abbott as the better known Felix captures exactly the right combination of warmth and ruthlessness while Jeremy Lloyd raises gormless to an art form as bewildered older brother Paul, the one with a good heart but little musical ability. Although saddled with some tiresome humorous schtick as the pun-loving Wilhelm Hensel, the painter Fanny ends up marrying, Riad Richie is dynamic and tremendously likeable, rather more than just a typical love interest. 

McDonough’s staging, attractively designed with period trappings by Sophia Pardon, moves at a hell of a pace and mines Finlay’s text for all its wit and maniacal fun, but also gives the serious stuff and an authentic appreciation of, and love for, classical music, room to breathe. It’s not perfect: an act two sequence with a character who speaks exclusively in rhyme doesn’t fully land. Similarly, an Allo Allo-adjacent section where the German Mendelssohns arrive in London and an English coachman converses with them “in German”, i.e. with a strong Teutonic accent and lots of mangled, bawdy mispronunciations, really outstays its welcome. The drastic changes in heart for Felix and mother Lea with regards to Fanny happen with a whiplash-inducing speed that defies logic in the second half.

These are comparatively minor quibbles though in a rollicking, crowd-pleasing romp that is likely to appeal equally to connoisseurs of comedy and classical music buffs. I roared with laughter, and I actually learnt something, but perhaps most surprisingly, given how much fun it all is, the integrity and transformative power of great music is honoured. Fanny is fabulous.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

by William Shakespeare 

directed by Owen Horsley

Shakespeare’s Globe, London – until 26 October 2025

running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval 

https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/troilus-and-cressida/

In all honesty, you can see why Shakespeare’s anti-war satire-cum-love story doesn’t get done all that often. It’s is all over the place tonally, and, although a mid career play, it sometimes feels like the bard was trying to cram in as many echoes of his earlier ‘greatest hits’ as possible. So we get the doomed lovers of Romeo and Juliet, the warring battles of the Histories, the ribald humour of the Comedies and an exotic setting (Ancient Greece and Troy) comparable to that of the Roman plays Julius Caesar and Titus Andronicus. The abhorrent treatment of women from the latter also rears its ugly head in Troilus and Cressida. 

Instead of trying to make a coherent whole out of the various strands and milieux, director Owen Horsley (who did last year’s gorgeous, queer-accented Twelfth Night in Regents Park) embraces the lunacy and allows the play to speak for itself, albeit through a flamboyant, modern(ish) dress prism. The result is an uneven, surprisingly camp, rendering that, when it works (mainly the Trojan sections and whenever Samantha Spiro’s gender-swapped Pandarus, now Cressida’s aunt, is on stage) is zany, unsettling and just tremendous fun, but can, at other times, tend to be plodding and confusing. The havoc wreaked by poor leadership, military and civic, is profoundly felt though.

If a messy play is matched with a messy but boldly theatrical production, there’s still a hell of a lot here to savour. Anachronisms abound in Horsley’s concept and Ryan Dawson Laight’s designs: Kasper Hilton-Hille’s confidently spoken Troilus lounges about in shiny leisurewear while his sister Cassandra (Jodie McNee, also doubling as Ulysses) bellows through a megaphone and sports a CND slogan-daubed parka coat. Tadeo Martinez’s Helen of Troy fanboy Alexander is a social media influencer who wields an enormous ‘APPLAUSE’ sign at the groundlings when the warriors Ajax, Hector et al come on like participants in a garish fashion show, and David Caves as mighty Achilles looks like an Old Compton Street muscle daddy who has gone spectacularly to seed. 

It initially all seems so deeply unserious what with the provocative poster of Helen of Troy’s half open, lipsticked mouth plastered all over the Globe’s yard and a giant Grecian statue’s foot dominating the stage, that the darker elements of the play (and it does get pretty dark) feel startlingly out of place when they come. Maybe that is the point but it’s such a bewildering gear change that it threatens to upend any engagement with the piece. 

The contrast between the vividly attired Trojans and muted, austere Greeks is mainly well done although the former are so much more fun than the latter, and the multitude of accents amongst the cast doesn’t help us with working out who is related to who etc. The first appearance of Lucy McCormick’s glittering, marvellous Helen of Troy, all sequins and breathy joie de vivre supported by Matthew Spencer as a screamingly camp Paris, is pure showbiz, but concludes alarmingly, suggesting that we’ve all just been had. Eamonn O’Dwyer’s off-kilter musical score unsettles too, like a colliery band playing a film soundtrack that’s by turns lush then funky.

Many of the individual performances are superb. Hilton-Hille and Charlotte O’Leary are appealingly unconventional as the titular lovers, a gritty, modern couple with agency and wit, although this approach makes their relative passivity when Cressida is promised by her father to the opposing Greeks, seem a bit odd. McNee’s uptight, lesbian Ulysses is very striking and Caves gives Achilles just the right mixture of aggression and dissolution. Oliver Alvin-Wilson is glorious and multi-layered as warrior Hector, an outward nobility and physical grace masking an all-too-flawed inner life. 

Best of all is Samantha Spiro as Pandarus: garrulous, meddling, amoral, in this version a woman, and the individual responsible for driving the lovers together. She’s conceived here as a chirpy, cockney-accented Mother Courage but armed with beauty products (in a case marked ‘War Paint’) rather than the spoils of war, equal parts Music Hall, Eastenders, Carry On and classical tragedy. She’s hilarious and endearing yet strangely worrying: ultimately a survivor, despite being permanently on the verge of coughing her guts up. Spiro is fearless with the language, and makes the cynical final speech, predicting ongoing sickness and decline for mankind as a whole as war rages on, into something simultaneously chilling and pitiful. Watching her, bloodied and disheveled yet attempting to lead the audience in a mirthless singalong like one of Julie Walters’ most baroque comic creations, is to see an actress at the top of her game, full of pathos, wicked craft and sheer theatrical bravura. 

It’s a memorable, ingenious performance that anchors a production so eccentric it runs the risk of floating away. Ultimately, enjoyable as this Troilus and Cressida is, it also demonstrates why the play isn’t universally beloved. Still, it’s worth seeing, for the performances and the sheer inventiveness of Horsley’s vision, but it might be worth reading a synopsis of the plot before you go.

MARY PAGE MARLOWE

by Tracy Letts

directed by Matthew Warchus

The Old Vic, London – until 1 November 2025

running time: 100 minutes no interval 

https://www.oldvictheatre.com/stage/mary-page-marlowe/

Take an apparently unremarkable life, cut it into pieces, throw those fragments up in the air then see where they land, and you have Mary Page Marlowe. Tracy Letts’ 2016  play, first seen at Chicago’s prestigious Steppenwolf Theatre, is a minor key yet compelling look at a flawed, relatable woman who endures a long life marked by sometimes questionable choices and a diffidence that makes her strange yet captivating theatrical company.

 Anybody who comes to Matthew Warchus’ oil-smooth but emotionally resonant production, staged in the round, primarily to see Susan Sarandon in her London theatre debut may be surprised at how much of an ensemble piece this is, and perhaps even more by how little the absence of a scenery chewing central turn matters. The acting thoughout is utterly flawless and Sarandon is magnificent, but so is everybody else. The title role is split between five actresses portraying Mary Page at various points in her life and each one (in descending age: Sarandon, Andrea Riseborough, Rosy McEwen, Eleanor Worthington-Cox, Alisha Weir) is tremendous. If Sarandon’s portion isn’t overly taxing, she is so real, generous and magnetic that you’re unlikely to feel short changed, and better to appear in a manageable but still impressive stage role than to over-extend and come unstuck as poor Sigourney Weaver did in last year’s Jamie Lloyd Tempest.

 Letts’ stripped-back text is terse and naturalistic, not a word, gesture or pause is wasted. We see the eponymous Mary Page at every stage of life from cradle (literally) to grave (almost), but not in chronological order. There is a strong, sad sense of Mary’s wasted potential as her story covers loss, alcoholism, marital strife and the idea of damaging behaviours repeating themselves and echoing down the years. Some sequences, such as the Tennessee Willams-esque showdown between Mary’s parents (Eden Epstein and Noah Weatherby, both superb) are gripping while a couple of others (a therapy session scene feels a bit rote and heavy going, despite the excellence of the acting) seem to take their foot off the dramatic pedal.

 Ultimately, it’s like piecing together a puzzle (the opening scene has Riseborough’s astonishingly authentic middle aged Mary talking to her young son and daughter about the collapse of her marriage but in a later scene Sarandon’s elderly incarnation tells a doctor she only has one child; we also see Mary celebrating being a free woman but only find out much later what she was incarcerated for), and it requires concentration on the part of the audience lest the brief scenes become a parade of random non sequiturs. The play is likely to frustrate as many people as it delights, but it has a clear-eyed humanity and truth that makes it worth investing in, and a mordant sense of humour. The changing decades are lovingly conveyed by Rob Howell’s evolving costume designs and the wig creations of Campbell Young Associates.

 There’s beautiful work from Hugh Quarshie and Paul Thornley as two of Mary’s husbands, and equally fine, funny, kind contributions from Melanie La Barrie, Kingsley Morton and Daniella Arthur-Kennedy as benign figures in her sometimes rocky life story. Ronan Raftery is appropriately tragicomic as a married man Mary gets involved with, and there’s a belting UK stage debut by Clare Hughes as her volatile teenage daughter. There’s not a single weak link in the sizeable cast.

 Mary Page Marlowe is a curious work, mostly lacking the incendiary dramatic firepower of Letts’ signature works Killer Joe and Bug or his masterpiece August: Osage County (surely due a revival?), but sharing the same gritty wit and gleeful love of people behaving badly. I suspect it’s a piece that rewards a second or even third viewing to fully appreciate the poignancy, the unconventional storytelling and richly textured characterisations, but it’s quietly engrossing. Most of the writing is raw and exquisite, and there probably isn’t an acting ensemble on any other current London stage to rival this one.

BLESSINGS 

written and directed by Sarah Shelton 

Riverside Studios, London – until 26 October 2025

running time: 90 minutes including interval 

https://riversidestudios.co.uk/see-and-do/blessings-177622/

Family intrigue is fertile dramatic ground. So it proves once again, in Sarah Shelton‘s new play which centres on an English Catholic family going through more than their fair share of challenges in the late 1960s, a time when the UK was experiencing some seismic societal and political changes . Blessings feels like a deeply personal play, a rich seam of affection running through the guilt, tantrums, traumas, and the skeletons rattling in the family closet.

Shelton, who directs her own work here, draws the central Deacon family and the other characters who come into their orbit, including a priapic youngster with designs on daughter Sally, and the Irish priest whose pastoral care verges on the oppressive, with an appealing lack of judgement and considerable warmth. The quirks, foibles and bad behaviours of the individuals could be rendered perhaps with bolder strokes (although expanded here from an earlier hour long version, Blessings still feels like a work-in-progress) but watching a family unit implode is inevitably compulsive viewing, even if this feels a little safe.

Unplanned pregnancy (more than one actually), domestic strife, alcoholism, social mobility, the disconnect between generations… These topics all get a look-in; there’s so much interesting stuff that one wonders if the play might benefit from being a full two act piece. Fleshing it out more might also help with the too-abrupt conclusion that has genuine dramatic heft and surprise, as it answers multiple questions posed earlier by the script, but feels currently as though the play just stops rather than ends satisfyingly.

There’s a pleasing symmetry in having former EastEnder Gary Webster portraying both the feckless patriarch Frank and the meddlesome but well meaning (or is he?) Father O’Brien. Freddie Webster, Gary’s real life son, doubles up as pompous, social climbing Martin Deacon, and Peter, the local lad who fancies Emily Lane‘s delightful Sally. Anna Acton delivers sensitive, committed work as mother Dorie, torn between caring, and raging disappointment.

Dorie isn’t the only mother in the house, and Hannah Traylen is nicely astringent as newly pregnant but decidedly single Frances, trying to reconcile her desire for independence with her need for parental support. A curiosity is that the family is working class but Webster’s cravat-wearing Martin, and Millie Roberts (excellent) as third sister Penny, a teacher, have both relocated to London and appear to have  entered a different social class altogether. I guess this is the way the capital was perceived from the provinces in 1969, but the disparity here is pretty glaring. 

Designer Alice Carroll gives the show the eye-catching, slightly garish look of the ‘swinging decade’ of the last century, although the wide composite set representing three locations at once, sits a little awkwardly on the stage of the Riverside’s studio two. 

Shelton invest her characters with a sometimes biting wit (“yes we know, she’s got a First from Cambridge and she doesn’t fart” observes Penny sardonically of Martin’s upper crust London girlfriend) but it always feels apiece with the heartfelt stuff that is at the core of the play. In a programme note, the playwright explains that she had originally conceived the piece as a screenplay and there are traces of that in the structure of short, staccato scenes punctuated by blast of 1960s pop. Blessings isn’t particularly original, and actually has a rather lovely old-fashioned air to it, but with a little more deep digging and a stronger ending, it could be really powerful. As it stands, it’s very entertaining.

GET DOWN TONIGHT – The KC and the Sunshine Band Musical

book by J F Lawton 

music and lyrics by Harry Wayne Casey

inspired by a true story by Harry Wayne Casey

directed by Lisa Stevens 

Charing Cross Theatre, London – until 15 November 2025

running time: 80 minutes no interval 

https://charingcrosstheatre.co.uk/theatre/get-down-tonight

It’s not often in the theatre that you find yourself wishing the show you were watching was a bit longer, but that’s the case with Get Down Tonight, the compact, amiable new tuner inspired by the hits and story of KC and the Sunshine Band (‘Give it Up’, ‘Rock Your Baby’, ‘Please Don’t Go’, ‘Boogie Shoes’, ‘Shake Your Booty’). It’s not that Harry Wayne Casey (KC) and J F Lawton’s musical is particularly outstanding (it’s perfectly entertaining but unlikely to keep awake at night the creatives behind & Juliet, Our House or Jersey Boys – arguably the strongest examples of the jukebox genre) but eighty minutes just isn’t enough time to cram in nearly thirty numbers as well as KC’s rise to fame, the sociopolitical changes of the 1960s and ‘70s, a meta-theatrical framing device, and the birth of disco.

J F Lawton’s script playfully imagines Harry/ KC (a sweetly charismatic Ross Harmon) and his best friend Dee (Paige Fenlon, excellent) directly referencing the fact that they’re in a show and pondering what makes a musical. It’s quite fun at first but gets a bit wearing, or at least it would if the cast weren’t so likeable and talented. Their individual personalities and bravura ways with a song go an impressive distance towards elevating a too-brief script.

Harry goes from working in a record shop and hanging out with his hippie mates to creating globally acclaimed club classics apparently in the blink of an eye, and the storytelling is so perfunctory that important milestones in his life, such as the loss of his first gay lover to AIDS or the untimely death of another close friend, are skated through with a speed that starts to look like callousness. Some of the transitions from dialogue to song are so cheesy that they make Mamma Mia! and We Will Rock You look like Sondheim-esque masterpieces of integration by comparison.

Musically though, the show is immaculate. The band is tight and dynamic, and all the voices are terrific. Alongside his musical theatre career, Harmon is a recording artist in his own right, and it shows. He’s warmly magnetic with a sky-scraping high belt and authentic star quality, making the transition from boyish gaucheness to pop star entirely credible. Although the role is barely fleshed out, Adam Taylor simmers and sparkles as Orly, the first man he falls in love with, and is a glorious singer and dancer.

Fenlon, and the stupendously voiced Annabelle Terry as a young woman nursing an unrequited love for Harry, have even less to work with than Taylor in terms of their characters, but perform with tremendous zeal and energy, and sell their songs for all they’re worth. So does the hardworking ensemble of four who multi-role, belt, and deliver Lisa Stevens’ enjoyable, hip-swivelling choreography with infectious enthusiasm.

Stevens’ direction is more efficient than inspired (why does a character who claims to be Mancunian sound like a Londoner…is this Frasier?!) but at least manages to deflect attention from how tiny the stage of Charing Cross is for a musical. Bretta Gerecke’s set is a riot of disco balls flashily lit by Jai Morjaria, and the sound design by Chris Whybrow nicely balances clarity with disco joy. 

With only scant lines of dialogue as connecting tissue and characterisations that, despite the considerable charm of the cast, are at best sketchy, Harry/KC’s songs are left to do a lot of heavy lifting here, and that’s not always enough. I defy anybody to hear the cheeky, boppy uplift of a track like ‘Give It Up’ (bravely, or recklessly, hurled in here within the first ten minutes) and not find a smile on their face, but, well crafted and catchy as they are, Casey’s creations get a bit samey when listened to en masse. There’s nothing inherently theatrical about them: the original stage version of Saturday Night Fever used new arrangements that gave a dramatic bombast to the Bee Gees back catalogue, but that hasn’t happened here where Mark Crossland’s orchestrations, while fresh and appealing, sound more like something from a recording studio. Eighty minutes of disco become a bit relentless when there’s not much script in between the songs….unless you’re on the dancefloor.

Fun and fleet, and packed with earworms, Get Down Tonight would, in all honesty, probably be pretty forgettable without this superb cast. It’s so short it would work best as part of a bigger night out in the West End, and it’s undeniably exhilarating to experience some of these smashing songs live on stage, just don’t expect much drama.

ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE 

by Joe Orton

directed by Nadia Fall

The Young Vic, London – until 8 November 2025

running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval 

https://www.youngvic.org/whats-on/entertaining-mr-sloane

Joe Orton’s first full length play, Entertaining Mr Sloane, shocked critics and audiences when it premiered in 1964. Seeing it again in Nadia Fall’s revival staged in-the-round at the Young Vic, it remains uncomfortable viewing, albeit probably for slightly different reasons in 2025.

Sloane is a jet black comedy with a grim Pinter-esque edge, gleefully juxtaposing some pretty tawdry goings-on (a middle aged brother and sister compete for the affections of, and ultimately control of, the amoral young man who may also be a murderer) with a verbose script that mixes the mundane with the outrageous. It has moments of comic joy but more often the tone is dark and threatening. Fall’s productions leans more into the latter than the former. I’ve seen much funnier versions than this one, but the speedy, whiplash-inducing transitions between near-farce and domestic horror are nicely done.

It’s the misogyny that is hardest to swallow in this day and age. Women are repeatedly referred to as “tarts” (“what a cruel performance you’re giving” says Ed to his sister Kath as she pleads with Sloane, “like an old tart grinding to her climax”), and are viewed generally as, at best, inconveniences and at worst as figures to be discarded once used. Kath is depicted as needy, manipulative and bordering on simple-minded, only finding her agency at the very end of the play, and even then it’s sleazy and pragmatic. 

While it’s true that Ed and Sloane are no better, neither of them have the indignity of getting their false teeth slapped out of their heads, or get to endure anything like the horrible moment when Ed manhandles his sister in front of a mirror and verbally assassinates her looks. Fall adds some visual business to the end of the play for the moment when Kath and Ed exert ultimate control over the younger, compromised Sloane that redresses the balance but it feels like a kinky directorial embellishment.

So too does the decision to have Jordan Stephens’ Sloane writhing on the floor or posturing on the sidelines when the character is being discussed by the others. There’s also a striking, but completely unnecessary, sequence at the top of the second half that has a shirtless Sloane gyrating in a modern club setting to pounding dance music. It certainly alters the pace and feel of the show but as a way of connecting the late 1950s/early 1960s milieu of the play to the present day, it seems pretty ham-fisted.

Peter McKintosh’s set is a thing of authentic, macabre wonder, a sculptural, suspended extravaganza of black-painted paraphernalia that collectively makes up a life: there’s a baby carriage, multiple chairs, a bed frame, a laundry basket, a floor lamp, a coffin…. Further similar detritus surrounds the circular stage; it’s a proper eyeful, whimsical yet strangely disturbing, and gets nearer to Orton’s specification that Kath’s house is on the edge of a rubbish dump than any other set for this play that I’ve seen.

Tamzin Outhwaite is a terrific, brittle Kath. She’s initially endearing but slightly manic, and hints at a gnawing loneliness under all the mindless chatter. She first appears holding her apron as though it’s the baby she was never allowed to keep, and this informs our perception of this woman. When she gets upset, it’s pitiful to watch but tempered with a chilling ruthlessness that, one suspects, is equal to, if not greater than, that of her hypocritical, closeted brother. Outhwaite lets us see every change of mood and mind, every hurt, every mendacity; it’s a memorable performance, entirely without vanity, although physically the actress could hardly be more different from the disrespectful way Ed and Sloane describe her.

Daniel Cerqueira’s Ed is another superbly realised performance. Uptight and mean-spirited, he hints, at least initially, at a remaining warmth for the father (Christopher Fairbank, wonderfully dishevelled and suspicious) who hasn’t spoken to him since he catching him in flagrante delicto (presumably with a man) several years previously. Cerqueira doesn’t overplay Ed’s covert lust for Sloane but watching the mask of pompous propriety slip from time to time is delicious, and also there’s no attempt to shy away from the nastier aspects of the character.

Unfortunately, Jordan Stephens is the least successful member of the acting quartet. While there’s every indication that nothing that comes out of Sloane’s mouth is to be trusted, the one-note bellow with which Stephens delivers almost every line means that nothing rings true. Physically, it’s easy to see what Kath and Ed see in him, but there’s little sense of danger with this Sloane, and his desperation when cornered seems all surface. 

Despite a bland performance in the title role, the caustic elegance and wit of Orton’s language still reigns, and Entertaining Mr Sloane is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. Whether or not that justifies the melancholy grubbiness and sheer nastiness of what unfolds is something that each audience member will have to decide for themselves. Either way, a vintage play still retaining a degree of shock value sixty years after being first produced, is pretty remarkable.