Mrs President - Review

Charing Cross Theatre

***

Written by John Ransom Phillips

Directed by Bronagh Lagan

Keala Settle

By a curious coincidence, London’s Trafalgar Square is currently proving a theatrical shrine to Mary Todd Lincoln. As Oh, Mary! plays on Whitehall, just around the corner sees artist John Ransom Phillips’s Mrs President making a return visit to the Charing Cross Theatre, offering its own perspective on this most intriguing of First Ladies.

Remarkably, the work is not so much a piece of dramatic fiction as a (quite possibly ghost-written) authorised biography. On reading the production's programme notes we learn that the writer “..heard her [Mrs Lincoln]. She said, “I want you to tell my story”” Ransom Phillips also tells us that spirits are part of his life. But if the man is truly hearing voices then he is either mentally unwell, or alternatively and quite possibly, gifted with a truly remarkable access to the spirits of presidential wives.

A two-handler, Keala Settle is breathtaking in her take on the title role, exploring Mary Lincoln’s love for her husband and her grief at the loss of three (of four) children as well as witnessing President Lincoln’s assassination. Opposite Settle is Hal Fowler as Mathew Brady, the photographer who captured Lincoln’s portrait for the USA’s Five Dollar bill. Brady also morphs into other male characters who impacted upon Mary’s life, with his performance proving as carefully crafted as Settle’s.

Set throughout in Brady’s studio, the structure of the play (that has been 10 years in the writing) hints at a fascinating potential. But Ransom Phillips’s writing stumbles from expositional lecture (there’s an awful lot of history to cram into the evening’s one-act of 85 minutes) through to pseudo-psychodrama as he explores Mary’s tragedy. There’s a sound core to his narrative, but as a play it’s all just too inconsistent to sustain credibility.

Keala Settle’s work alone is worth the price of admission, even if Ransom Phillips’s script does not match her excellence. But if the writer can truly access the minds of America’s First Ladies, I can’t wait to see his take on Jill Biden.

Runs until 8th March

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

OVO - Review

Royal Albert Hall, London

*****

Written, choreographed and directed by Deborah Colker

Cirque Du Soleil's crickets leaping in the Royal Albert Hall

Just opened for their annual residency at the Royal Albert Hall, Cirque Du Soleil’s OVO dives down into the long grass, transporting its audience into a stunning world of bugs and creepy-crawlies, all depicted through a cast of ridiculously talented circus performers.

As a mysterious egg appears on stage, three clowns (Mateo Amieva (Spain), Robin Beer (UK) and Neiva Nascimento (Brazil) respectively performing as a scarab beetle, a bluebottle and a ladybug) break the ice with slick comedy and audience interaction. As is the hallmark of all good circus productions, recognisable dialogue is out – the performers relying on their miming skills to tell their brief moments of narrative. The emphasis here is on laughter rather than bravado and within minutes these gifted insects have the audience in the palm of their claws.

With the crowd suitably warmed up, five ants (a troupe from China) snake their way onto the stage, before they flip themselves onto their backs and start juggling, with their feet, first kiwi fruit and then corn cobs and finally each other! The artistes’ skill and co-ordination is frankly mind-boggling.

Before our eyes Caitlin Quinn and Ernesto Lea Place, from North and South America respectively, emerge as moths with breathtaking aerialist skills before the Japanese Eisuke Saito, here depicting a weevil, juggles 5 luminescent diabolos that brilliantly suggest fireflies darting around the arena. The first half of the evening wraps up with beetles suggested by a multinational troupe of trapeze artists, taking our collective breath away as they loop and leap between lofty platforms suspended from the venue’s ceiling.

Six performers wriggle onto the stage as leaf-bearing fleas before launching an assault on the Chinese Poles, which all paves the way for the show’s arachnids to be on display, the Chinese Qiu Jiangming deftly treating the slackwire as though it were spun silk. Also as a spider, Mongolian Nyamgerel Gankhuyag contorts herself into apparently impossible permutations of the human form as she lithely prowls in search of prey.

The evening’s final act is left to the crickets who bounce themselves off and back onto a trampo-wall of impossible height. Such is their pinpoint co-ordinated timing that the act becomes a blur of green people literally taking flight before our eyes!

Yet again, Cirque Du Soleil deploys meticulous planning, rehearsal, strength and above all skill, to present to their audiences a show that fuses the laws of physics into the absolute limits that a human body can endure. With a cast of more than 50 plus a stunning band to deliver the evening’s live score, the tickets are worth every penny. OVO is breathtakingly beautiful.

Runs until 1st March

Photo credit: Anne-Marie Forker

High Noon - Review

Harold Pinter Theatre, London

**

Written by Eric Roth

Based on Carl Foreman's motion picture

Directed by Thea Sharrock

Billy Crudup and Denise Gough

The translation of High Noon from Western to West End is a gamble as risky as awaiting the arrival of a convicted vengeful murderer on the midday train. But where Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 Oscar-winning masterpiece told a wondrous story, Eric Roth’s debut stage-play guns down the legendary yarn, leaving the exquisite original bleeding in the dust. 

Zinnemann relied on immaculate performance, cinematography and music for his screen masterpiece. Roth condenses that narrative into a claustrophobic work of trashy pulp fiction that’s very heavy on exposition and includes a liberal use of foul language that jars when set against the beauty of Carl Foreman's movie screenplay.

Billy Crudup delivers a decent turn as marshal Will Kane, a man forced to confront his nemesis Frank Miller, and on his wedding day too. Opposite Crudup and perhaps the evening’s biggest disappointment is Denise Gough’s two-dimensional and cliched turn as Kane’s bride Amy Fowler. The only performance that comes close to matching Crudup’s work is from Rosa Salazar as the town’s bar-owner and hooker, Helen Ramirez. Hers is a role of curious complexity that Salazar delivers with compassion and sensitivity. Elsewhere, too many of the cast are doubled or even tripled up in the roles they are allocated - that at times is more of a confusing distraction than an advancement of the plot.

Roth's tinkering with the political nuances of the movie is clumsy. Where Foreman's writing offered up a poignant allegory upon the evils of McCarthyism under which he had been persecuted, Roth (no-doubt inadvertently) sometimes sets his Kane on a pedestal alongside Donald Trump and Rudolph Giuliani, in his references to how effectively the marshal had cleaned up the town's historic crime problem. 

The usually brilliant Tim Hatley has designed a set of wooden slats that creates an effective suggestion of the brilliant sunshine of America’s frontierland, but is otherwise too nondescript an affair to effectively portray the tumbleweed nature of the town. Hatley does however conjure up an enchanting arrival of the eponymously climactic steam train - a staging that leaves one wishing he could have been as equally inspirational in his far more bland railway designs that are currently the backdrop to Starlight Express. And quite why Roth has chosen to pepper his script with snatches of Bruce Springsteen and Ry Cooder has to remain a mystery.

A clock sits atop the stage counting down the show’s 100 minutes. With the play lasting a quarter of an hour longer than the movie, those minutes drag. If High Noon is to mark a trend of Westerns being transformed into stage productions then may I respectfully suggest that Mel Brooks is approached for the rights to Blazing Saddles.

Runs until March 6th

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Woman in Mind - Review

Duke of York's Theatre, London

*****

Written by Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by Michael Longhurst

Sheridan Smith

Sheridan Smith as Susan in Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mind gives one of the finest performances to be found on a London stage. Barely a comedy, the play shows the playwright's deepest, darkest brilliance, his narrative exploring Susan’s descent into psychosis. Smith gives the most harrowing portrayal of a woman whose mind is decaying before our eyes, unable to separate the reality of her own naturally flawed family from the false creations of her illness-oppressed brain.

In what is perhaps Michael Longhurst’s greatest work as a director, Smith captures Susan’s complex fragility with a conviction that seems almost effortless and which belies her acting genius. Onstage throughout, Smith delivers a masterclass in her craft.

The supporting cast are almost as magnificent as their leading lady. Tim McMullan is Gerald, Susan’s husband. A vicar and historian, his loving support for his wife is made all the more poignant when set against her apparent hatred for his professional commitments. Fine work too from Louise Brealey who plays Muriel, Susan’s live-in sister-in-law, whose calamitous catering gives rise to the evening’s few truly comedic moments.

In a heavily promoted stunt-casting, comedian Romesh Ranganathan plays Susan’s doctor, Bill. Albeit an accomplished performer Ranganathan proves the show’s weakest link, lacking the heavyweight chops to tackle a major West End role. As Susan’s imaginary family however, Sule Rimi, Chris Jenks and Safia Oakley-Green are all magnificent. Similarly, and in a comparatively tiny role, Taylor Uttley as Susan and Gerald’s son Rick adds an exquisitely painful layer of emotional agony to his mother’s tragedy.

Technically outstanding, Soutra Gilmour’s set enhanced by Andrzej Goulding’s subtly haunting video projections, delivers a beautiful creation of an English garden. Paul Arditti’s sound design proves to be another of the production’s ingenious treats.

In a performance that demands to be recognised at the Olivier Awards, Sheridan Smith makes Woman In Mind unmissable.

Runs until 28th February in London

Then touring:

4 – 7 MARCH 2026

Sunderland Empire, High Street West, Sunderland SR1 3EX

10 – 14 MARCH 2026

Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 282 Hope Street, Glasgow G2 3Q

Photo credit: Marc Brenner