SHOWMANISM

Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“a shape-shifting reflection on theatre’s sacred, absurd, and slippery essence”

In Showmanism, sinuous Dickie Beau invites his audience into a theatrical séance of sorts, where ghosts of performance past and present converge in a dreamlike meditation on the nature of acting itself.

This is not a conventional solo show, nor a piece easily categorised. Rather, it’s a shape-shifting reflection on theatre’s sacred, absurd, and slippery essence, filtered through Beau’s singular practice of choreographed lip-sync.

From the moment the audience arrives, the show’s creator, Dickie Beau, is watching. Not in a passive stage-waiting way, but with the kind of unblinking attention that suggests something has already begun. The stage is a cabinet of curiosities: a skull, a space helmet, a wheelbarrow of earth, a chest. It’s part playground, part reliquary. Objects are handled with purpose, not symbolism. A mop is a mop until it’s something else.

As the show unfolds, voices pour in – recorded interviews with a constellation of theatre figures – Sir Ian McKellen, Patsy Rodenburg, Steve Nallon, Fiona Shaw and more – each offering reflections on the craft.

Beau mouths their words with uncanny fidelity, capturing the hesitations, stumbles, and emphases that make speech human. It’s not impersonation, rather, it feels as though the voices are using him – inhabiting him.

In one glorious meta moment – and for one night only – the voice of Ian McKellen reflects on seeing Dickie’s performance of Ian McKellen, watching himself while watching from the audience. Meanwhile, on press night, the actual Ian McKellen was in the stalls hearing himself talking about hearing himself… and so on.

The themes spiral outward from familiar theatrical lore (a missing script, a drying actor) into questions of ontology. What does it mean to perform? Is theatre a form of worship or therapy? A hiding place? A revelation? The voices disagree. Some revere the stage as sacred ground; others are dryly dismissive. Critics are roasted, actors adored, and through it all, Beau remains both the medium and the message.

Under Jan-Willem van den Bosch’s direction, the show is exquisitely controlled yet elusive. Marty Langthorne’s lighting and Dan Steele’s sound design conjure a dreamscape more felt than seen, while Justin Nardella’s set thrums with backstage nostalgia. The effect is like wandering through someone else’s memory of theatre.

Beau, physically, is a marvel. Barefoot or barely clothed, he transforms with minute adjustments of face and form. There’s mischief, melancholy, and moments of startling stillness. And when, briefly, he mimes to his own recorded voice, the effect is disarming. Who, really, is doing the talking?

Showmanism is not tidy. It veers towards the self-indulgent. Performers talking about performers. Elevating themselves to gods. Ugh, who needs it? Beau is told on tape by a panoply of greats how thoughtful and warm and wonderful he is, and we are reminded that Beau decided to include all this flattery in the show so we could all hear. It can become too much, too me, me, me – but then again only briefly.

The show doesn’t build to a climax or deliver a thesis. At times, it wanders. The meaty content is on tape, so much of the show is not a live performance at all. But that’s also part of its spell. It separates performance from message so the latter can explore the former. For all its intellectual reach – and it is rich with references – it is also unexpectedly funny and physically immediate.

Dickie Beau offers something new, something original, an antidote to the short-form brain-rot video snacking that dominates the culture – and yet adjacent in trickery and technique.

SHOWMANISM

Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd June 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Amanda Searle

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

LETTERS FROM MAX | ★★★★ | June 2025

HOUSE OF GAMES | ★★★ | May 2025

PERSONAL VALUES | ★★★ | April 2025

APEX PREDATOR | ★★ | March 2025

THE HABITS | ★★★★★ | March 2025

EAST IS SOUTH | ★★★ | February 2025

AN INTERROGATION | ★★★★ | January 2025

KING JAMES | ★★★★ | November 2024

VISIT FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN | ★★ | July 2024

THE DIVINE MRS S | ★★★★ | March 2024

SHOWMANISM

★★

“Director David Furlong deftly and clearly steers the action back and forth in time”

There are two dramatic themes that are being played out in Rowland Hill’s play, “Who is Claude Cahun?”, that seem to be competing with each other. Essentially it is about two individuals’ fight against the rise of fascism in the 1930s and their experiences during the second world war. On the other hand, it is a love story between a photographic artist and her muse using today’s transgender and queer ideology to explain the dynamics of their relationship. Hill’s writing creates a conflict between the two rather than blending them together into a coherent narrative. The former wins. We get a fine perspective of Claude Cahun’s – along with their lover Marcel Moore – resistance work following the German occupation of Jersey, but the crucial question in the title of the play is left unanswered.

Claude Cahun was born Lucy Schwob into a well-off Jewish family. After attending the Sorbonne, they adopted the pseudonym and began making photographic self-portraits, eventually collaborating in the 1920s with lifelong partner Marcel Moore (born Suzanne Malherbe). Although Cahun received the recognition for their artwork, Moore’s integral contribution went largely unrecognised. Rivkah Bunker and Amelia Armande, who play Cahun and Moore respectively, give mannered performances that are generally too polite to express the groundbreaking relevance of their works and lives. In their struggle to identify themselves we also have little to latch onto either. It is a slow burn, and it is difficult to match the lack of fire with the passion needed to fuel their resistance and activism work during World War II.

Director David Furlong deftly and clearly steers the action back and forth in time, showing us snippets of the young Cahun before returning to the house in Jersey in which Claude and Marcel are forced to accommodate members of the Gestapo; all the while covertly carrying out their activism – or ‘guerilla art’ as they called it – distributing anti-German fliers and poetry under the title of ‘The Soldier with No Name’. Among other roles, Ben Bela Böhm and Gethin Alderman are two, somewhat witless, Nazi officers led on a cat and mouse chase by the couple. There is an overall lack of tension, although glimmers of the danger do shine through when Claude Cahun is finally cornered and questioned. Bunker’s cool portrayal of the resilience of Claude’s character is a quiet and strong episode in an otherwise confused narrative.

Awkward attempts at physical theatre, which are intended to mirror the couple’s affinity with the surrealist movement, are at odds with the naturalism of the cast’s performances. More successful is the use of Jeffrey Choy’s video design, incorporating images of the real-life characters, as well as placing us firmly in time and place with captions. A modern approach that still adds to the old-fashioned feel of the piece.

In the first act, particularly, there is little in the writing or performances to make sense of – or justify – the emphasis on twenty-first century trans self-representation. Nor do we get a sense of the androgyny and the blurring of gender that informed their lives and work. During the occupation, the couple were forced to give the outward impression that they were sisters, living together as ‘good housekeepers’. However, that portrayal was little different from what we see in their backstory as the so-called progressive artists. Tokens of mask work and linguistic gestures are not enough to underline the importance of their work and their pioneering representation of gender identity.

The often-untold story of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore is a fascinating and vital one that should resonate with everything that is happening today. Hill’s writing certainly brings it to light, without fully bringing it to life.

SHOWMANISM

Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“a shape-shifting reflection on theatre’s sacred, absurd, and slippery essence”

SHOWMANISM

Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd June 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Amanda Searle

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

SHOWMANISM

SHOWMANISM

SHOWMANISM

WHO IS CLAUDE CAHUN?

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★

“Director David Furlong deftly and clearly steers the action back and forth in time”

WHO IS CLAUDE CAHUN?

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 20th June 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Last ten shows reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

WHO IS CLAUDE CAHUN?

WHO IS CLAUDE CAHUN?

WHO IS CLAUDE CAHUN?

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