Category Archives: Reviews

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

★★

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

★★

“Nick Winston’s staging is slick but lacks pace and energy”

Apparently, John Schlesinger’s 1969 American film “Midnight Cowboy” is the only X-Rated film to win the Best Picture Academy Award. Despite its bleak setting and outlook, the story of an unlikely friendship between two lost souls in New York City has been variously described as one of the greatest films of the sixties, and later deemed ‘culturally, historically and aesthetically significant’. Based on James Leo Herlihy’s novel of the same name, its success – according to the director – was largely down to its brutal exploration of loneliness. Both the film and the novel captured the quality of its time place in American cultural history.

Fast forward half a century and the ground-breaking story washes up in the hands of dramatist Bryony Lavery and songwriter Francis ‘Eg’ White who have shoehorned the bromantic fairy-tale of New York into a two-and-a-half-hour slice of musical theatre. A few years ago, we might have been more surprised, but as we have become acclimatised to outlandish choices for a musical’s subject matter, we have learnt to take this sort of thing in our stride. Claiming to be based on the novel, in reality “Midnight Cowboy – A New Musical” duplicates the film’s narrative by doing away with the central character’s back story and presenting it in disjointed flashbacks which, in this medium, get lost in the mix.

Joe Buck (Paul Jacob French) is a naïve yet damaged individual escaping his dead-end life in Texas by reinventing himself as a cowboy and heading off to New York to become a male prostitute. Success doesn’t come easy, to the point that he even pays his first client instead of the other way around. Hooking up with Rico ‘Ratso’ Rizzo (Max Bowden), he thinks his fortunes are on the rise until he discovers the rat Ratso has taken him for a ride. A mutual dependence grows, however, and after Joe moves into Ratso’s squalid squat, each individual’s isolation finds meaning and connection in a world of hustlers and ne’er-do-wells.

Nick Winston’s staging is slick but lacks pace and energy, and we never feel the full force of the unexpected chemistry between the protagonists. Despite strong performances we remain unconvinced, and neither do we feel their desperation. Similarly, Joe Buck’s encounters steer clear of gritty realism. However, whenever we are drawn in, we are suddenly denied access by a song that comes out of nowhere. Francis ‘Eg’ White has form as a songwriter, and there is no denying that there are a fair few excellent numbers, but the score is too often at odds with the text. There are exceptions. Tori Allen-Martin’s gorgeously smoky voice curls round the sultry, soul-disco chords of ‘Whatever it is You’re Doing’. We are in Serge Gainsbourg territory here, with a soft-porn gloss. Bowden’s ‘Don’t Give Up on Me Now’ has a real Tom Waits quality, reprised later by French who throws in shades of Randy Newman. Elsewhere, however, the songs tend to halt the narrative or simply cloud the intent. ‘Every Inch of this Earth is a Church’ strips away the inherent comedy of the classic scene where Joe Buck mistakes a religious fanatic for a pimp. And blow jobs and ballads have never been known to go well together.

It could be ground-breaking, and there is at times a surreal, cartoon-like quality to the show. But it cannot conceal the tameness of this interpretation. As if sensing the emotional detachment, French cranks up the passion during the closing scene, but we feel that it is unearned and inauthentic. There is poignancy in there somewhere, but like the dreams of the hapless heroes, it remains out of reach.



MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Reviewed on 10th April 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Pamela Raith

 


 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

WILKO | ★★★ | March 2025
SON OF A BITCH | ★★★★ | February 2025
SCISSORHANDZ | ★★★ | January 2025
CANNED GOODS | ★★★ | January 2025
THE MASSIVE TRAGEDY OF MADAME BOVARY | ★★★ | December 2024
THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH | ★★★★★ | November 2024
[TITLE OF SHOW] | ★★★ | November 2024
THE UNGODLY | ★★★ | October 2024
FOREVERLAND | ★★★★ | October 2024
JULIUS CAESAR | ★★★ | September 2024

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

THE GUEST

★★★★★

Omnibus Theatre

THE GUEST

Omnibus Theatre

★★★★★

“powerful, provocative, and resonant”

Behind the ivy-covered walls of their quaint English cottage, Ricky and Joe – a middle-aged couple – live a quiet life, enjoying the fruits of their labour, both tangible and intangible. Their days are filled with gardening and tender conversations, the sort of domestic tranquillity earned over years of shared love and quiet perseverance.

But the rhythm of their peaceful life shifts the moment a stranger crosses their threshold.

The Guest is a poignant and timely stage production that echoes the England of today – an England grappling with the escalating realities of climate change, where each day seems hotter than the last. “Hot, isn’t it?” they mutter to each other. “Forty-one… nearly forty-two, they said.” The search for shade has become an impossible task, even under the once-reliable vines in their garden.

Into this sweltering, shifting landscape (brought to life with Christianna Mason’s simple, yet effective set design and enhanced by Imogen Senter’s intense lighting)  walks Hannah, a young mother newly arrived in the country, portrayed with haunting depth by Erica Tavares-Kouassi. Initially asking only for a glass of water, Hannah’s brief visit becomes a daily presence, and soon, tensions begin to rise. Conversations morph into confrontations. Small talk spirals into debates, and eventually into shouting matches, revealing the deeply embedded fears, misunderstandings, and prejudices lurking just beneath the surface of civility.

Tavares-Kouassi’s performance is nothing short of extraordinary, capturing the emotional weight of the immigrant experience – from the hopes and hardships of arrival to the struggle for recognition and belonging in a place that feels simultaneously foreign and familiar.

Stephanie Jacob (who also wrote the play) as Ricky and Graham Turner as Joe deliver equally compelling performances driven by Lucy Richardson’s skilful direction. They embody the emotional complexity of those witnessing change from within the comfort of their long-established routines. Through them, we feel the creeping uncertainty of a world that no longer feels predictable, the unease that comes with confronting the unknown, and the quiet panic of being asked to leave the safety of the familiar “nest.”

The Guest is more than a play – it is a mirror held up to our society. It tackles bigotry, xenophobia, and the fear of the “other” with nuance and grace. The script is beautifully written, deeply human, and painfully relevant. In a world that grows more divided by the day, it reminds us that beneath our differences lies a shared need – for connection, for compassion, for home.

This is a must-see production: powerful, provocative, and resonant. It doesn’t just ask us to watch – it asks us to feel, to reflect, and perhaps, to change.



THE GUEST

Omnibus Theatre

Reviewed on 10th April 2025

by Beatrice Morandi

Photography by Héctor Manchego

 

 


 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

VANYA IS ALIVE | ★★★★ | February 2025
THE ICE AT THE END OF THE WORLD | ★★★★ | September 2024
MY LIFE AS A COWBOY | ★★★ | August 2024
HASBIAN | ★★★★ | June 2024
COMPOSITOR E | ★★★ | September 2023

THE GUEST

THE GUEST

THE GUEST