RIFT’s Macbeth at Balfron Tower

Welcome to Borduria, the country inhabiting all fictional characters. Goldilocks lives in Northern Borduria but the portal in a basement of the brutalist Balfron tower leads straight to the grim South where the unscrupulous and scheming Macbeths reside. Alongside the fictional characters live the Bordurian citizens who show around the spatially shifted visitor and speak in borderline offensive Russian accents.

Director Felix Mortimer said that he never calls his work “immersive” and it crucially isn’t. Ushered around by two chaperons with varying degrees of improvisational ability the audience experiences the story of the murderous couple in short bursts. Several flats on various floors of the building serve as sets for the banquet, murders, fights and plotting. Michael Adams and Sarah Ratheram were the Macbeths on this particular evening and so close up they were particularly captivating. Still, there is something inherently problematic with the way audience and performers interact and how the narrative is driven between the scenes. Clearly separated from the action I was mostly an onlooker but not always, there was an palpable awkwardness about what my role as an audience member was at any given point. Am I supposed to interrupt when someone is being murdered or would that screw up a perfectly planned time table? Gavin Duff’s Banquo and Roseanne Lynch as Lady MacDuff manage to blur the line as their performance aura is more penetrable and their fate so bloody that compassion and shock eradicates all dramaturgical concern.

Alexander Luttley’s flirtatious Porter gives us rare interaction with a fictional character and there is an utterly creepy devised scene by Gruff theatre which should not be spoiled but it feels like it’s straight out of horror film. However, it’s all too brief and doesn’t entirely slot into the rest of the evening. Exploring and roaming is not encouraged and questions to where certain doors lead are blocked rather unceremoniously. I remain contained in the space and controlled in my actions to the point of frustration. After I was placed in front of a telly blaring out lengthy faux news material in a moment of unchaperoned free will I decided on a visit to the loo. It turns out to be bad timing indeed and I missed the tragic Lady Macbeth scene. Tuts and disapproval from the chaperons greet me and I feel guilty for what is essentially a structural weakness of the piece. On every staircase or behind every corner there are Bordurian stage managers and assistants with clipboards not so secretly directing groups of actors from one place to the next. What a logistical effort from cast and crew, sadly not one that convinces entirely. The borscht served at dinner was terrific though, it was red as blood and therefore matched the plan of our murderous couple perfectly.

A note on details in world building: the passport necessary to enter Borduria and which is never referred back to throughout the performance strictly states potassium – or Banana – consumption is not advisable when traveling through the rift, yet the trifle served at dinner contains bananas. Little details like this show that this mammoth project is ultimately a fractured project and instead of emanating new insight these fractures unveil the crumbling substance of the piece itself. The Bordurian substance then, a mostly consistent design reminiscent of the socialist GDR in the 70s, falters behind the drab facades and curtains.

It all has to do with expectations, really. Having experienced the meticulous location detail and research that went into other promenade shows (think Punchdrunk or Signa) this one disappoints. However, it has to be acknowledged that with its aim to be more than just a variation on a theme and actually follow the plot of the play the production has set itself a difficult task.

The tagline of the performance is “Does murder sleep?” and the answer to that is “Yes, very well, thank you.” Why I was made to stay overnight remains a mystery as the main action is all wrapped up by 1 am, no murderous shouts or midnight wandering. I suppose, there’s nothing like being woken up after five hours of sleep, made to climb up seven flights of stairs to stand on a wet East London roof top to witness the fizzled out after pains of a promenade performance. Astonishing clear view over London with a cup of coffee and Bordurian ramblings around me – odd, but definitely an experience. Clearer than anything else in this show is the potential of what could have been.

Cheek by Jowl’s Ubu Roi

This play, it farts, it licks, it spits. Cheek by Jowl’s hugely successful Ubu Roi returns to the Barbican in all its decadence-smashing scrutiny.

An adolescent boy with a camera pans over dead meat and the extreme close-up is projected on the crème walls of a pristine dining room. A middle-aged couple swoops on stage arranging the dinner table, vases and pictures on the walls into perfect angles. It’s a flawless surface but underneath seethes a greed and lust irreconcilable with the immaculate image presented. The boy with the camera knows that the closer you look the more abominable the things you will uncover. What unfolds in the next two hours is a radical dissection of regal power and the futility of financial gain that is playful, shocking but also shockingly good.

Alfred Jarry’s fin-de-siècle piece Ubu Roi follows père Ubu and his wife (Camille Cayol as a Lady Macbeth-clone and Christophe Grégoire as the fool king) who plot to kill the current ruler Wenceslas of Poland (Romain Cottard). Together with his entourage Ubu takes over and then wrecks the kingdom with his arbitrary ruling and killings. The text at the first glance might not appear as transgressive as it did when it was originally performed in 1896 with audiences rioting when faced with the manic king and his depravity. Director Declan Donnellan found a way to make it relevant and startling again by paralleling the seemingly amorality-affirming, carnevalesque piece with the setting of a bourgeois French dinner party.

Switching back and forth to much comedic effect the two worlds are woven together expertly. The boy’s initial camera exploration for example exposes faecal stains on an off-stage bathroom rug the usurper king will wear later at his coronation. And there are other inventive uses of everyday household goods that serve as props. A loo brush serves the king as a sceptre and a cleaning spray bottle becomes a deadly weapon to defend from attacks. It becomes clear that only the young heir Bougrelas can stop the manic traitor Ubu. In a oedipal twist Sylvain Levitt, giving a forceful performance, doubles up as the young heir and the adolescent observing the party.

These depicted characters are of course only monarchs and dukes in cipher. With all its crassly comedic antics the pieces comes uncomfortably close to exposing the mechanism behind the kind of moral short-circuiting that happens on the striking surface where political and financial power kindle their destructive flames. There is a lovely, simple line the king utters which translates from the original French the piece is performed into “I’m going to kill everyone and then… and then… I’ll go away.” Nick Ormerod’s white-washed, open design provides the literal canvas under which nothing remains hidden and which, after the performance, is left in a state of utter anarchy. Ketchup on the walls, food on the floor, furniture upturned – a perfect representation of the destructive effects of Ubu’s power hunger driven by an eternal “just because”.

Under the pressure and violence of this absurd figure language becomes more and more precarious and consonants start to slip and move about. “Merde” becomes “merdre”,  “finance” turns into “phynance” – a kind of absurd spluttering and tottering reflective of the corrupted political structure the play concerns itself with. In the alternate world dinner party world distinguishable language is completely absent altogether.

This piece celebrates the absurd and pulls out all the stops, it’s visceral, provoking and a joy to watch.

The Roof at Lift 2014

Someday you will die. And you can’t escape. So, you go out and find stuff. You attach meaning to the stuff. You keep the stuff. You need more stuff. You meet people. You get to know them. They’re weird. You like them. You give them your stuff or share it with them. You have a misunderstanding. You break up. Some idiot might beat you up for your stuff. You’re not quite sure why but you’re sure it wasn’t your fault. Basically, you’ve got one go at figuring out the messy thing that is life, and then you’re gone. What I’m trying to say: metaphysical scope isn’t really the problem of Fuel’s new show The Roof.

In a purpose-built arena on the Doon St Car Park behind the National Theatre, a headphones-clad audience is welcomed to a kind of nerdy live version of the board game LIFE, only with more rubber ducks and Space Invaders on the walls. The audience on the ground is surrounded by a kitsch cityscape reminiscent of the 1990s computer game Commander Keen: slightly non-menacing but very wacky. Player 611, after struggling with what looks like a broccoli monster which has had an unfortunate encounter with a shaver, only has one life left to fulfil the mission: get the girl, save the princess, hit an overgrown mothball suit wearer personifying your mother – the usual. One life left. Off you go.

There’s a hint of well-placed irony in inviting people to witness a videogame-style play they can’t actually influence themselves. The production struggles to extend its insights to the audience of what exactly there might be beyond the rat race of life. The solution to not giving and not wanting to give an answer is design, design, design, and playing with reiterations. Directors Frauke Requardt and David Rosenberg have assembled a cast of eight experienced movement performers and free runners who jump, slide and dance around the stage area. The set by Jon Bausor has lots of hidden doors, visual gags, and a plexiglas box with a woman who delivers a different service every time the player makes it to the end of a level. Guns, medi packs, a kiss and somewhere in between a point that our relationship to technology might make us lose our sense of urgency about life.

It’s generally a lose/lose situation if you watch a play that has the universal question of the meaning of life at its core. If it’s sometimes a bit shit and you don’t quite understand what’s going on, then you might argue that, actually, the artists have captured the point rather well. For example, it can seem quite disappointing that these free runners are constrained by the walls of the set. It’s all wonderfully choreographed throughout but they don’t do really do the expected risky, breath-taking jumps. They’re not free at all and their movement potential is in contrast with the 2D strip-like set around the audience. After 35 minutes of mulling this over my mind begins to drift and I start to imagine Nietzsche having fisticuffs with Kant about free will while dancers in zentai rabbit suits dance soothingly to the beat. Sorry if you just had a disturbing experience googling “zentai rabbit suit”.

Someday you will die. And you will still have all your stuff and some guy will have punched you and you still think it wasn’t your fault. Obviously all because this show you once saw, The Roof, didn’t make you care enough about not breaking out of the rat race. Or it did, and you’d still rather sit down to play Flappy Bird on your phone. At least you could play it yourself.

Written as part of the Ideastap Critical Writing Workshop for LIFT 2014.

Bonny but not blithe: Much Ado About Nothing (for Christmas!) at the Park Theatre

Slightly unremarkable is probably the most fitting way to describe ACS Random’s production of this much loved Shakespeare play. The intriguing idea of setting the piece in a 1940s post-war setting is sunk by unnecessary sincerity and not enough sparkiness. At the Park Theatre.

Newsflash: The war is over, the enemy defeated and the boys are back. It’s Christmas and the Mediterranean Messina is swapped for a British upper-class mansion. The returning soldiers find themselves in Leonato’s home where Beatrice and her cousin Hero greet them. It doesn’t take long for Beatrice to pick a fight with Benedick, an old flame and sworn bachelor. There’s still a spark there when the two of them engage in some verbal duelling, but alas – in this production – it’s not quite right. Garry Summer’s fidgety Benedick is not cocky enough to keep up with feisty Beatrice. Lines that need to stab merely poke and twists that need to surprise only arouse mild interest. Libby Evans’ Beatrice is full of panache and intent but without the right chemistry between the central couple the balance of the play is in danger.

It wouldn’t be too bad if the rest worked but there are just one too many misjudged directorial choices in the piece. Scarlett Clifford plays Hero as verdant debutante with a crush on the young Claudio (Andrew Venning). To have her constantly giggle like a schoolgirl makes the character appear a bit vaporous but in a production of Much Ado it’s always a challenge to make any Hero anything less than a bit of a drag because she’s such a passive character and a play-thing for men’s whims. And it’s true that we do feel for her when she is shamed and breaks down, with only Beatrice rooting for her.

The juicy villain is quickly found in Don John who here is presented as a repressed homosexual and Jack Lewis’ interpretation works well within the setting. To clear away the villainous mess Gordon Rideout and Catherine Nix-Collins are brilliant as the gormless guards Dogberry and Verges tapping into the richness and the humour of the malapropisms. The two might possibly be the best thing about the whole show. Unfortunately when they come to meet with Julian Bird’s starched Leonato, the fun stops.

The overbearing sincerity of long stretches of the production obfuscate moments of real emotional punch. Sometimes the stiff upper lip tone of the chosen setting jars with the dramatic high points. When Claudio shames Hero and consequently Leonato condemns his daughter while she is at his feet sobbing one can’t help but want to tell them to pull themselves together and have a cup of tea to calm their nerves. It’s all a bit like Woodhouse without the wit. Some awkward blocking and laboured motivations for action do the rest.

Zarah Mansouri’s set design is sparse but fittingly so reflecting the post-war austerity of the setting. There is, however, a defiant glamour in the Christmassy hue that’s spread over the production including the rather elegant and gorgeous costume choices, even if the choice of Christmas as a time setting is purely decorative.

This production somehow manages to highlight the weak spots of the original while spoiling its own idea. Although there is a wonderful mime-only scene that provides some Benedick and Beatrice backstory I’m certain that the story would have been somewhat confusing for someone who has never seen the play done before.

Terrifyingly funny cauliflowers: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Duchess Theatre

The Resistible Rise of Arthur Ui is a thinly veiled parable giving account of all the key events in Hitler’s rise to power in the 30s in Germany. This stylish production set in Chicago’s gangster world during the heydays of the Great Depression features a strong cast. It’s so funny, it’s terrifying. At the Duchess Theatre.

Unoriginal and didactic, Brecht has been called many things in his lifetime, but one can’t deny the fact that he had a razor-sharp mind that was able to cut right to the bone of political atrocities. Recreating the world in a theatre can only make an impact if what is described can be conceived of as changeable. And when we watch the ridiculous imp Arturo Ui weaselling his way up through a reign of violence and manipulation, Brecht shows how he thinks Hitler could have been stopped. Although Brecht refused to call this play a parable, it is exactly that. All of the events in the play correspond to real events in the 30s and 40s in Germany, and we see how Hitler climbed up the ranks in the government to become chancellor of the Third Reich.

The play’s setup adds a comedic spin as a means of estranging the viewer. Instead of government politics, we deal with shady vegetable business men. When the cauliflower trust in Chicago suffers economical pressure, they need someone to get their business going again. Enter Arturo Ui and his muscle Ernesto Roma (Michael Feast), who are keen to rise up from petty criminals to rub shoulders with the influential men of the city. William Gaunt’s Dogsborough, like his real life equivalent Reichs president Paul von Hindenburg, is a resigned man lured into corruption by the promise of money and power.

From lush costumes, effective lighting and atmospheric set – this production is slick throughout. This visual feast is welcome, as the show has quite a slow start and exposition and character introductions take up a while. The language (in a gorgeous translation by George Tabori) is melodious, sometimes lulling, and the text is often relentless and refuses to simplify the matter. Luckily, everyone is in for a terrifying payoff. The more you know about German history from that time, the better this payoff will be.

Ripe with references to Hamlet, Richard III and Macbeth, the play exposes how political power and performance always go hand in hand. Political narratives are made by people, and it’s the responsibility of theatre makers to smash these narratives, to pick them apart and expose their artificiality if they are harmful. This comes together best in the flower shop, which uses Goethe’s famous Faust scene to explain the annexation of Austria to Germany. Here Ui woes his Gretchen Betty Dullfoot while David Sturzaker’s disconcertingly chirpy Givola distracts her husband. Lizzy McInnery plays the brittle Lady Anne-like character as a great foil to Henry Goodman’s smarmy Ui.

Goodman’s scene with Keith Baxter’s Shakespearean actor is a highlight of the show. When Ui decides to improve his public performance they stumble through the famous Julius Caesar speech “Friends, Romans, countrymen” and the audience rejoices in watching this buffoon (and the terrific clown Goodman).

The conclusion of play was probably the single most terrifying ten minutes I’ve ever spent in a theatre. I assume that it was not simply my German guilt, but when Ui stands on a high, red platform passionately talking about expanding the vegetable business, I am watching through tears while Brecht’s texts forces me to laugh. It’s a cruel experience and is owed to Jonathan Church’s clever direction as well as Brecht’s thieving, didactic genius.

Not much pointless pondering: Hamlet at the Rose Theatre, Bankside

The story of the young Dane contemplating how to take revenge on the uncle who has murdered his father has been done uncountable times by companies throughout the centuries. In this version by director Martin Parr, Hamlet is not given much time to pointlessly ponder his actions. At the Rose, Bankside.

The story of the young Dane contemplating how to take revenge on the uncle who has murdered his father has been done uncountable times by companies throughout the centuries. Contemplating love, madness, suicide, family and politics, it’s a story that can serve as a vehicle for numerous explorations of political and social issues. In this version by director Martin Parr, Hamlet is not given much time to pointlessly ponder his actions.

Turning a play that usually sprawls between two and a half and three hours down to the TV movie-length of 90 minutes is an achievement in itself. This Hamlet zips along rather nicely, and the fact that time is clearly out of joint in this interpretation overall plays to the advantage of the piece.

Only four actors play the most prominent characters in this version, and it is self-referential and witty about the play’s own performance and reception history. When Hamlet addresses the audience almost conversationally right from the beginning, we know that this chamber piece-approach is also aiming to explore motives of theatricality or performances of public personae.

For example, efficient text edits cut right to the core of the “play in the play”, and having Claudius (Liam McKenna in a charismatic performance) give the audience the murdering knave. This elevates the whole section from a mere plot contrivance to make Hamlet see his uncle’s guilt into an eye-opening observation of such human foibles like flattery or guilt and how they relate to our inner demons and fears.

To have both Getrude and Ophelia played by the same actress (Suzanne Marie) opens the door to some very intriguing implications, some of which might be subtly about incestuous urges, others, when Getrude recounts the news of Ophelia’s demise, are played nearly like an out-of-body recollection.

It’s not an abstract meta-Hamlet though, the characters and their motivations are very much the focus. Seeing Hamlet performed on the site of the original Rose Theatre is a special treat, so the set and props are minimal and effective. Rebecca Brower’s design, which is dominated by red strings of light, adds depth to the character’s actions and turns the challenging and confined space of the Rose into an intriguing spectacle. It jars slightly with the chamber theatre approach of the piece, but it is still wonderful to watch how the performers claim the unusual space as their own. The Rose has a great acoustic for a place that’s essentially a little wooden stage with a roof looking out on an excavation site, and in this historically-laden place Shakespeare’s words sound as fresh and crisp as the day they were written.

Jonathan Broadbent’s Hamlet is a soft-spoken and sometimes impish man – a strong performance with a more adult-like approach to the character, which made sense in the overall arc of the story. And Jamie Sheasby, faced with the challenge of being Laertes, Rosenkrantz and the Gravedigger, found some very convincing and entertaining-to-watch nuances.

Not all of what was attempted works though. A card game with poisoned tequila shots never quite reaches the dramatic heights of the sword fight in the original. This is a great Hamlet for Shakespeare new-comers and open-minded connoisseurs. To me it felt like nothing essential was missing from the story, but with its ruthless cuts it is definitely not for people hallowing the original text.

Fifty Shades of Meander: Aftercare at the White Bear Theatre

Diving deep into the murky, psychological realms of human sexuality, Steve Lambert’s play Aftercare centres around three people in the BDSM scene who have developed a twisted, codependent relationship with each other. But for a piece that’s all about blood play and cutting, the play is nowhere near as edgy or engaging as it should be. At the White Bear Theatre.

Sam, a young woman whose life is dulled by a soul-sucking managerial job, seeks out the company of Paul and submits to his sadomasochistic treatments. At first shocked by the experience, she soon develops a taste for the pain that has renewed her senses and perception of the world. She demands an even harsher and more painful treatment with long-lasting effects. But Paul, who has a history as a submissive, finds himself unable to cater to Sam’s needs. He is still under the spell of his old mistress Lisa (Claire Louise Amias) who has literally scarred him for life. Suffice to say, this show is not for the squeamish.

At its heart, the play asks how relationships really work and why we seek them out even though a lot of them are bound to end in self-compromise, disappointment or even pain. Is it the sadomasochistic side of relationships that a lot of people actually crave? There are many facets to BDSM, and the play appears to be much truer in its depiction of submissive and dominant behaviour than E.L. James’ ubiquitous Fifty Shades saga. Without glorifying or sugarcoating anything, Lambert’s play shows how physical sacrifice and subordination take precedence over personal proximity and emotional support.

If only it were more interesting to watch. It takes quite a while to warm to the characters and then after motivations and conflicts have been introduced, the piece meanders aimlessly without ever going anywhere. I could swear that at some point the author has somehow managed to make a connection between a committed relationship and human vampirism, but then I can’t be entirely sure because somewhere between litanies about who drinks whose blood and the pointless passing around of a razor I lost interest in the characters.

Giles Chiplin’s set is a grungy-looking background with a bench that, later on, when the play’s setting changes into a derelict church, serves as a coffin-like structure. The practical set toned down to a bare minimum would have served more purposeful performers as a space to lay open the psychological scope of utterly dominating or being dominated by another human being. But at times it just felt like the actors were only saying the dialogue and were not really inhabiting the character. Basil Stephenson sometimes gets lost on the tiny stage of the White Bear, so unfocussed is his Paul that at times he seems to unconsciously contradict what is being said in the script. A bold choice by Vanessa Russell to choose Aftercare as her debut stage performance, and she certainly plays SM novice Sam with conviction and the right mix of innocence and eagerness.

However, on the whole it simply wasn’t an interesting watch – not sexy enough to spark any primal desire and the build-up to key scenes wasn’t tense enough to make me care. There certainly is a bold, well-researched idea in there somewhere, but the execution left me completely cold. Some of the more interesting aspects about religion being touched on in the play are unfortunately not explored further.

Unholy night: Merrie Hell at the Soho Theatre

For some people Christmas time is the best time of the year, but drag performance legend David Hoyle has, of course, seen through the sanctimonious facade of our consumer culture and sets out to show his audience the dark side of Christmas. At the Soho Theatre.

For some people Christmas time is the best time of the year. It’s all so very special: candles and glittery lights everywhere, the smell of mulled wine at the markets and lovingly picking presents for the special people in your life. Drag performance legend David Hoyle has, of course, seen through the sanctimonious facade of our consumer culture and, with a song on his lips and red baubles dangling from his hips, he sets out to show his audience the dark side of Christmas.

But he is no ordinary Scrooge, as together with musician Richard Thomas he merrily flips off various shades of heteronormative hypocrisy to make people aware that society usually demands of them to be a cruel and insensitive “mix between a moron and robot” to succeed.

The show starts with a weird, inclusive song proclaiming that “We’re All In This Together”, and I wondered if I’ve accidentally stepped into a special Soho High School Musical adaptation but I need not have worried too long. Gays in the military, male sexual domination, religion – everything gets a quick once over, if you catch my drift.

The focus of the show is clearly on Hoyle, with no set on the stage and only a macabre Christmas tree to set the mood for the evening. Richard Thomas, who is the stooge behind the piano, comes across a bit laboured at times when he gives the cues to prompt the next song-clad rant. But he seems to be enjoying himself watching Hoyle being cynical while belting out lyrics that make the audience gasp. The songs are funny but more than just a little caustic. To say that this show is not really suited for the light-hearted would be like saying that heroin is not quite suited to cure sleeplessness. But better leave the absurd similes to Hoyle, who, for example, thinks you’d be “Better Off Dead” if you’ve never heard of German revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg.

And here is the surprising thing about the evening: although the set-up could very easily just have been a guy in women’s clothes ranting about Christmas and trying to earn some cheap laughs, Hoyle and Thomas dig deeper and only make it look like a cheap laugh. It’s a simple dramatic strategy, using contrasts not to shock, but to point out what is actually shocking in society. Ergo, the song about suicide clearly needed to be spiced up with a tap dance routine.

Sadly, most of the songs are a slightly forgettable, and I must admit that I expected a bit more finesse from Thomas, who in the past wrote the music to Jerry Springer – The Opera. But all in all it’s fun to see a show in which, for once, one does not care the slightest bit about political correctness and has cocky audience interaction.

This cabaret show does a good job with taking its audience on a slow descent into hell. And did I mention that it’s not for the easily offended? Although, that being said, mentions of bestiality and necrophilia should not stop you if you like your entertainment clever, queer and thought-provoking.

Bubble Trouble: Insufficiency at Riverside Studios

Written by the inventor of the pill, Carl Djerassi, Insufficiency is a comedy that takes on the neurotic world of science and academia. It’s frothy and light but ultimately not sufficiently entertaining. There are probably a lot more subtle themes in this play than this show was able to bring out. At the Riverside Studios.

Set in the chemistry department of a second-rate American university, Insufficiency focuses on the Polish chemistry professor Jerzy Krzyz (Tim Dutton of Ally McBeal and Bourne Identity fame) who is struggling to get tenure. His research is in the field of bubbleology – the studies of bubbles – but this is not the only reason his colleagues don’t take him seriously. Trying to solve the problem of hydrophilicity with the help of nanoparticles and polymer coating, he has dared to base his research on alcoholic beverages like champagne and beer. Plainly put, he tries to prevent fizzy drinks from turning flat too quickly and instead of publishing his findings in renowned chemistry periodicals, he sells them to companies like Dom Pérignon. His peers are jealous of the third-party funding he manages to collect and when two people die in mysterious circumstances, our mad professor gets dragged in front of a jury.

This might sound like an intriguing conceit, which sets up a conflict between characters to observe the petty antics in academia, but it turns out it to be quite disappointing. Over-repetitive statements about confidential disclosure-agreements and a story arc about an office love affair lead to no satisfactory conclusion. There is a whole subplot about racial stereotyping and name-changing: Jerzy Krzyz becomes Jerry who becomes Jean Delacroix, and despite that taking up a lot of time, it still remained under-developed and without punch.

The blandness of the set does justice to an actual uninspiring university setting. The sound design and lighting take up the theme of bubbles but they remain mere illustrations and sadly don’t add anything new to the piece. From fidgety stage hands to dripping puddles of water there are a lot of details that divert from some of the bigger ideas, along with a few rather clumsily-solved scene changes. And usually, if these details catch the audience’s attention, it means that the piece is not as engaging as it should be.

The plot bubbles along without any particular direction, although there is a parallel between the two plot lines: objectivity in science means not to be invested in the outcome of one’s studies, and of course if you’re working for a private investor this is not so easy. To unveil the truth about the two murders, Karen Archer has the thankless task of playing the prosecutor and addressing the audience-jury. Moving from suave to tenacious she does the best she can with this cliché-ridden role. But eventually, the court-room scenes as a framing device turn out to be rather pointless.

Walter van Dyk’s long-suffering Head of Chemistry doesn’t appear to be quite settled within the role, and Sara Griffiths puts up a good fight as the love interest caught between office politics and infatuation for the idiosyncratic scientist. The best thing about the play is Tim Dutton’s excellent portrayal of the eccentric professor, complete with orange socks and the attractive arrogance befitting a genius.

I couldn’t help but feel that this is a play that would probably shine more when being read rather than performed. It won’t leave you linguistically dazzled, and if that’s what you expect when you’re going to see a play about academic jealousies you will be somewhat disappointed. When Krzyz says “I don’t need to prostitute myself for a little pat on the head” to dismiss the pressure of having to publish in proper journals, or when he calls postgraduates a “group of slaves”, there is a glimpse of very well-constructed writing, but as a piece in general it fails to hold up to expectations. That is not to say that there aren’t some beautifully poetic moments, when bubbleology is put into the wider context of the structure of the universe and the theoretical concept of quantum space-time and foam. But these moments also point towards everything this play could have been were it not for some fatal logical fallacies. To suspend my disbelief, especially in the court room plot, this would have needed a much bolder direction. It lacks suspense and is not quirky enough to get away with structural weakness. It had a very bewildering ending, too, with bubbles of an entirely different nature.

Intelligent and Laugh Out Loud: Jumpy at the Duke of York’s Theatre

Jumpy is another intriguing show the Royal Court has brought to the West End. TV’s Tamsin Greig (Green Wing) shines as a woman struggling to reconcile her feminist ideals from the past with the dreary reality of family life catching up with her. At the Duke of York’s.

Jumpy is another intriguing show the Royal Court has brought to the West End. TV’s Tamsin Greig (Green Wing) shines as a woman struggling to reconcile her feminist ideals from the past with the dreary reality of family life catching up with her. In the past, with productions like Hush, Wild East or Catch, April de Angelis and the Royal Court have had a good track record of producing relevant plays about British middle-class people. And with last year’s successful run, Jumpy was a likely candidate for the Royal Court’s on-going West End transfer collaboration with the Duke of York’s.

The show opens on overworked, disillusioned Hilary coming home from work and downing a glass of wine before even having put down her coat and bags. She’s a fatigued 50-year old woman and we soon find out that, in the 1980s, she used to be involved in the feminist movement. But it seems that a loveless marriage and a pubescent daughter have drained all notions of empowerment from her.

Strong women involved in the second-wave feminist movement now having become older often feel their sense of entitlement has been betrayed. This should be their time to earn the fruits of their efforts, and the change in society they fought for so hard should be passed on to the younger generation. But instead Hilary’s daughter Tilly, failing to identify with her mother’s ideals, is a disconnected and petulant girl who is more concerned with boys and fashion. Bel Powley is convincing as the 15-year old brat, but her performance does not really reflect her growing up in the two years or so the play spans.

Tamsin Greig delivers a funny and touching performance of a woman walking the tightrope of either miserably accepting the inevitable dreariness of London middle-class life or wanting to cry out at the injustice of it all. She is too worldly and wise to really believe that an affair with the young university student Cam (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) will relieve her misery, but at the same time she seems to despise the cynicism that has crept into her perception of the world.

Opposite Hilary is her friend Frances, portrayed by the delightfully scene-chewing Doon Mackichan. She tries to embrace her age and, in an awkward attempt to reclaim her own sexuality, has the house in tears of laughter when she does a burlesque dance number under the guise of self-discovery.

Lizzie Clachan’s design is an unadorned, whitewashed space that hints cleverly at underlying and suppressed middle-class problems and allows for the character’s actions to be observed by the audience, like in an experimental arrangement. The result is a very impersonal room, reflective of the loveless marriage and the broken mother-daughter relationship inhabiting it.

The Duke of York’s theatre, however, does not quite feel like the right space for this show. On the evening I saw it, some of the performances were surprisingly unengaged and uninvolved in the action. The very personal moments get lost in the depth of the space, and it is only at the very end when Hilary steps downstage and half-addresses the audience that her desolation really comes crashing down on us.

Jumpy is a very intelligent piece that sometimes wraps what it wants to say into too many layers, and so when it comes back to a more accessible level there is the odd clunky scene or plot development. When the piece is at its best, there is laugh-out loud humour paired with poignant and accurate observations about female desires. Even though it is not a perfectly balanced piece of theatre, in general it is definitely worth seeing for Tamsin Greig’s performance alone.