Kimberly Akimbo - Review

Hampstead Theatre, London

*****

Music by Jeanine Tesori

Book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire

Directed by Michael Longhurst

Maria Friedman

Arriving in London after a Tony-studded run on Broadway three years ago, Kimberly Akimbo from David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori is possibly their finest work to date. Offering the writers' signature approach of viewing life through an unconventional lens, Maria Friedman plays Kimberly, a teenage girl afflicted by an extremely rare condition that has seen her age at between four and five times faster than normal. We meet Kimberly around her 16th birthday - in what is to be, effectively, the last expected year of her life. This skewed concept of time’s passage drives the narrative with Soutra Gilmour’s revolving set, focussed upon a clock face, has its hands sweeping throughout the show at a tragically accelerated pace.

Naturally at the perfect stage of her own life to play the prematurely aged Kimberly, Friedman acts a 16-year with a heartbreaking sincerity that brings a kinetic credibility to the emotions of joy and profound sadness that her character experiences. As she relates to her family as well as to her own awkwardly adolescent high school peers, Friedman navigates Kimberly through perhaps the most nuanced and bittersweet journey to be found on a London stage.  Not only that, Friedman’s singing is heavenly too - a truly outstanding leading performance.   

Friedman is matched by a fine company with, on the night of this review, Rachel Flynn, one of the show's two swings, stepping up to the role of Pattie, Kimberly’s mother. Pattie is a complex creation of a character, in part a monster in how she treats her daughter, elsewhere a mother desperately trying to reconcile herself to Kimberly’s disability. Flynn’s cover work was sublime, and her powerful solo number Father Time, sensational. 

Peter Hannah puts in an equally fine shift as Buddy, Kimberly’s alcoholic father while Alice Fearn as the teenager’s errant aunt Debra offers the evening’s comic moments with her razor sharp acerbity.

As Seth, Kimberly’s closest school friend, Gilli Jones delivers thoughtful work, beautifully sung, that elegantly speaks of his love for his friend. His is a particularly challenging supporting role, with Jones flawless in his work.

In a show that is a homage both to the state of New Jersey and the ideal of the road trip that Kimberly dreams of before she dies, Tesori’s tunes prove to be a medley of well constructed Americana, perfectly conducted on the night by Nigel Lilley. Matt Cole’s choreography, best deployed amongst the quartet of Kimberly’s school friends is imaginative and immaculately drilled.

Fabulous new musical theatre!

Runs until 7th November 2026

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

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

Next to Normal - Review

Wyndham's Theatre, London

*****

Music by Tom Kitt

Book & lyrics by Brian Yorkey

Directed by Michael Longhurst

Caissie Levy

There are moments when new writing touches the very essence of humanity. So it is with Next to Normal that has now opened in the West End following an acclaimed run at the Donmar Warehouse last year.

Caissie Levy is Diana, a woman who we learn early on in the show is grappling with significantly impaired mental health. Jamie Parker is her husband Dan, battling to support her, while there are perfectly nuanced performances from Eleanor Worthington-Cox as daughter Natalie and Jack Wolfe as son Gabe. To say much more about the plot would be to spoil the story’s reveals, as Levy and her three co-stars take Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s inspired songs and narrative, delivering harrowing entertainment punctuated with moments of perfectly weighted ironic humor.

In support are Trevor Dion Nicholas as the story’s two doctors, and Jack Ofrecio as Natalie’s would-be suitor Henry.

The words and music are fast-flowing with credit to Nick Barstow’s six-piece ensemble perched atop Chloe Lamford’s ingeniously designed set.

Ultimately uplifting, the two-act show plumbs the depths of grief and suffering and it makes for an inspirational evening that is probably not suited to those who are emotionally fragile. That being said, Next to Normal is exquisitely crafted musical theatre.

Runs until 21st September

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Caroline, Or Change - Review

Playhouse Theatre, London


***


Music by Jeanine Tesori
Book & lyrics by Tony Kushner
Directed by Michael Longhurst

Sharon D Clarke and Ako Mitchell

Caroline, Or Change is a curious show that sees a 5 Star cast deliver distinctly flawed material. Set in an early 1960s Louisiana, Sharon D. Clarke plays Caroline Thibodeaux, an African-American maid employed by the (Jewish) Gellman family. Caroline is low paid and hard working and Kushner and Tesori do a fair job in sketching out the prejudiced, poverty trap that blighted the South’s African-Americans, a situation that some may argue continues to the present day.

Where Thibodeaux, we learn, has three growing children for whom she heroically and proudly provides on little more than a hand-to-mouth basis, the Gellman household is a desert of dysfunctionality. Noah (played by the confident and cool Jack Meredith on the night of this review) is 9 years old. His mother having passed away some time back sees the boy now being raised by father Stuart and step-mother Rose (Lauren Ward) . Kushner goes on to suggest an intriguing, but ultimately fragile, bond between Noah and Caroline as the child seeks and apparently (so we are led to believe) receives, emotional succour from the matriarchal maid. Noah despises Rose, leaving Stuart reduced to little more than an (oddly) clarinet playing nonentity. The reed playing offers a possible musical twist but as an easy nod to perhaps a hint of klezmer in the score, its an unusually lazy touch from Tesori. Rose rarely strays from an angst and kvetch-ridden neurotic, while the Gellman grandparents offer little more than superfluous stereotypes.

In their portrayal of the African-American characters however, the writers soar. Caroline listens to the radio - itself embodied by three beautifully soulful singers, while the bus that she takes to and from her work, is also given a living soul. And one only needs a moment’s recollection of Rosa Parks to recognise the clunking symbolism of the bus in the narrative.

Technically it is not just Clarke who is award-winningly magnificent. Ako Mitchell as The Dryer and The Bus is, as ever, on fine form, while Abiona Omonua as Caroline’s daughter Emmie is another vocal star.

But taking a step back, one can see that Kushner and Tesori, possibly burdened by their white privilege, have deified Caroline and her community, while monstering America's Jews on both sides of the Mason Dixon Line. In Rose’s petty fussing over Noah’s inability to recognise the value of even the smallest amount of loose change, she embodies one of the oldest anti-semitic tropes in the book: that of the Jew as mean and penny-pinching. It is (thankfully) not often that such a potentially hate-filled stereotype is played out on stage. 

In his musical Parade, Jason Robert Brown offered a passionate yet dignified exploration of the South’s capacity to hate both Jews and people of colour. Kushner lacks that dignity offering us instead his own personal expiatory, prompted possibly by a personal conflict with his Jewish heritage? In today's world of increasing hatred Kushner might have done better to have worked his issues out in the therapist’s chair, rather than impose them upon the theatregoers of Broadway and the West End.

Booking until 6th April 2019

Bad Jews - Review

Arts Theatre, London

**

Written by Joshua Harmon

Directed by Michael Longhurst 

Ilan Goodman and Jenna Augen

Acclaimed at Bath last year and sold out at London's St James Theatre in January, Bad Jews now makes the short hop across town to the Arts Theatre to meet an almost insatiable demand to see the show. Indeed the clamour for tickets has been so strong that it led comedienne Ruby Wax to tweet recently of Bad Jews' "mostly Jewish audience. If you insult them, they will come”.

The play is provocatively titled because as Harmon admits in the programme, eleven years ago and before a plot had even evolved, he thought it would be "a good title for a play". Hmm. A dodgy premise for any creative work. Substance needs to come before the packaging and ultimately Bad Jews makes for mediocre drama.

Three Jewish cousins (plus Melody the Christian girlfriend of one cousin) are gathered in New York for the funeral of grandfather Poppy, a Holocaust survivor. Amidst familiar and familial spats of jealousy, rivalry and momentary affection, the plot's action focusses upon a Jewish necklace (a Chai) that Poppy had kept concealed during his time in the camps.

Religiously committed granddaughter Daphna believes the Chai should rightfully be hers whilst assimilated cousin Liam (who via some family chicanery, already possesses the necklace) is on the cusp of proposing to Melody and plans to give her the Chai in place of a traditional engagement ring. Daphna’s nauseated fury at Liam’s plan is understandable. However where Harmon abuses our disbelief, whose suspension is already hanging by a thread, is in asking us to accept the conceit that WASP Melody would even prefer the battered Chai over a diamond solitaire.  It makes for an in-credible pivotal plot-line.

To be fair, Harmon does thread some strands of relevance into his work. His exposition of the vain and arrogant self-belief of Daphna's piety is spot-on and he offers a further morsel of intellectual meat to chew on as he references the impact of assimilation and "marrying out" upon Judaism's cultural heritage. Noble arguments and credit too for his attempt to address the impact of the Holocaust upon third generation survivors. But ultimately it's all packaged up in a bundle of writing that far too often makes for a tedious naivety. Where Arthur Miller once brought a scalpel-like precision to such complex studies of humanity, Harmon wields mallet and chisel and it shows.

Speaking to The Guardian recently Harmon tells of how just before the play opened in Bath, that he had cut a line from the text that referred to the safety in being Jewish today, recognising that the sentiment didn't accurately reflect the current experience of European Jews. Whilst the edit was necessary, actually the chopped words should never have been written in the first place. For most of the last millennium continental Europe has been a deadly place for Jews - and that's both before and after Hitler - and Harmon's failure to acknowledge that continuum, even as he wrote Bad Jews, evidences a worrying ignorance.

And that side-splitting comedy? The programme notes reference Mel Brooks’ The Producers in which Brooks brilliantly lampooned Hitler in his 1968 farce and subsequent musical.  However, that The Producers worked at all was because Brooks craftily mocked an evil regime. Here, by contrast, Bad Jews' audience rather than laughing at the Nazis, are invited to guffaw at a surviving family's struggles to cope with the Holocaust's devastating legacy. There’s a whiff of freak-show here and it leaves a nasty taste.

Further credit to some of the performers. Ilan Goodman's Liam is a focussed channelled force, who notwithstanding the ridiculously Fawlty-esque extremes imposed upon his character, makes us believe in his comfortably assimilated Jewish identity, as well as his love for Melody. Playing his love interest, Gina Bramhill is a strawberry blonde genteel gentile. It's a novel twist that sees the non-Jew sketched out as a caricatured stereotype, but again and to her credit, Bramhill makes fabulous work of some occasionally ghastly dialogue. That Jenna Augen's Daphna, almost a year into the play's run, speaks too often in a squeaky gabble is mind boggling.

Completing the quartet, Joe Coen's Jonah is the Beavis-type silent one, who too little too late offers an endgame revelation that deserves more analysis from Harmon than the (yet another) sensational moment it is given.

In his song Shikse Goddess, taken from The Last Five Years, Broadway composer Jason Robert Brown, nails the complex and awkward nuances of assimilation with witty yet profound analysis in four minutes. Harmon takes more than an hour and a half to clumsily cover much of the same ground. Somewhere in Bad Jews there could be a good play struggling to emerge. This ain't it.


Runs to 30th May 2015