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The Ice Cream Boys

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed – 11th October 2019

★★★★

“There’s never been a better time to make this study, and the Jermyn Street production does it with panache”

On 11th October 2019, two days after Jermyn Street Theatre opened its new production, newspapers reported that former President of South Africa Jacob Zuma was to stand trial for corruption charges in relation to billion-pound arms deals. Charges against Zuma are not new; these same charges had simply been held off until now.

This is all very timely for The Ice Cream Boys. The sweet name belies the murky political intrigue at its heart. The single act play posits a meeting between two architects of the rainbow nation’s modern history: Zuma and his former intelligence services mastermind, Ronnie Kasrils.

In Gail Louw’s new play, we’re asked to enter into the fantasy of Kasrils and Zuma meeting in the present day. They’re old men now, their paths crossing in a starched hospital room as they both await tests and treatments for the sorts of conditions that come to men in their eighties. Zuma reports that he’s slow to pass water (‘Prostate’, he says grimly) and Kasrils that he has a possible skin melanoma after ‘all that time in the sun’. But the men, former allies, have plenty of unresolved differences. Cue a complex but taut psychological interplay, as the pair play metaphorical (and literal) chess and debate lives spent steeped in divisions of race and class.

Set design (Cecilia Trono) is simple but clever, neatly invoking a clinical white hotel room that acts as a kind of purgatory. The men are left alone to spar but for occasional interruptions by their nurse – and their past. When history intrudes, often in the form of painful memories, lighting (by Tim Mascall) shifts, jarring back to the cool, sanitised hospital room after.

The two male leads – Andrew Francis as Zuma and Jack Klaff as Kasrils – hold the stage with astonishing personality. Klaff, especially, is spellbinding, using his whole physicality to invoke Kasrils and maximising his passing resemblance to the man. The South African accents, so often mangled, are almost faultless, and the charisma such that we find ourselves in a bind as to whether to warm to or despise these deeply flawed individuals.

It might be easy to overlook the third player here; Bu Kunene as Thandi, the nurse tending to her patients with increasing exasperation. The play has Thandi transforming into numerous other characters, appearing magically transformed each time – from Zuma’s mother to Nelson Mandela, Kunene delivers with skill and a quiet certainty. So understated is her performance, especially as an increasingly steely Thandi, and so in contrast to the bombast of the Zuma and Kasrils characters, that it shows a real talent for handling sensitive characterisation. It’s also essential to see a woman here, playing and representing the many women who were implicated and caught up in – and harmed by – the political and personal machinations of the men.

The politicians appear variously as children, laughing and singing in fond waves of nostalgia and petulant when denied ice cream, and as uncompromising despots debating solutions for their divided country. Each is misty-eyed at memories of the women who influenced them – but in the next breath, we’re graphically reminded of Zuma’s rape accusation (dismissed in court but presented as near-fact here, with Zuma barely bothering to deny it).

And this is the truth of politics; complicated, messy issues led by complicated, messy and perhaps ultimately irredeemable individuals. There’s never been a better time to make this study, and the Jermyn Street production does it with panache.

Reviewed by Abi Davies

Photography by Robert Workman

The Ice Cream Boys

Jermyn Street Theatre until 2nd November

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Original Death Rabbit | ★★★★★ | January 2019

Agnes Colander: An Attempt At Life | ★★★★ | February 2019

Mary’s Babies | ★★★ | March 2019

Creditors | ★★★★ | April 2019

Miss Julie | ★★★ | April 2019

Pictures Of Dorian Gray (A) | ★★★ | June 2019

Pictures Of Dorian Gray (B) | ★★★ | June 2019

Pictures Of Dorian Gray (C) | ★★★★ | June 2019

Pictures Of Dorian Gray (D) | ★★ | June 2019

For Services Rendered | ★★★★★ | September 2019

Click here to see our most recent reviews

1mm Au Dessus Du Sol

Lilian Baylis Studio

Reviewed – 27th September 2019

★★★★

“The artfulness of his use of physicality is fascinating”

The lights come up on a pitch-black stage in which a grand piano and pianist seem to hover, suspended. The pianist begins; we feel as though we’re seeing the start of a grand, classical concert. But here, as so often during 1mm Au Dessus Du Sol, all is not what it seems.

It doesn’t take long before the pianist – the astonishing Jean-Philippe Collard Neven, of whom more below – is joined by b-boy Yaman Okur, and any expectations of the night begin to be systematically shattered. Is this a breakdancing performance? Well, sort of. And with live classical music? Well, yes, but not as you know it. What follows is an astonishing and surely unique cocktail of what might seem wildly differing disciplines, pulled together into a whole that entertains and, perhaps even more surprisingly, genuinely moves.

The programme describes Okur as ‘an atypical character in the world of breaking’. You’d better believe it. The artfulness of his use of physicality is fascinating; we see what even the uninitiated will recognise as classic breakdancing moves, with shoulders popping and swagger to match, but against the background of the piano and handled slowly, deftly, by Okur, they become something languid or heart-breaking – or something laugh-out-loud funny.

And while Okur’s body, and what it can and can’t allow him to do, become the study of the night (especially a shatteringly powerful conclusion which sees him stripped and vulnerable, his bare back lit from above, each muscle taut and tired), he makes great use of his face in performance. Without words, he shares jokes with the audience and interacts with his pianist collaborator with great eloquence. He truly shows us a full body performance.

It would be a grave mistake to dismiss Collard Neven as just the pianist here, though. He brings so much more than that, and indeed he shares Okur’s delightful use of the expressive body, folding his long form around the piano and across the stage. He appears tweedy, buttoned-up – everything we might expect of a classical pianist. But we see him interact fluidly with Okur, at one stage placing barriers around him on the stage as he appears to writhe in pain in an act that could be either tender or controlling. Certainly, for all his reserved elegance, he controls much of the night; we see him stride past Okur mid-performance and play jarring piano chords that physically jerk Okur’s muscles, so we’re left unsure about how much agency he or any of us can ever have around our bodies in space.

The arc of the night shows us a lifespan before our eyes. At first, a childlike Okur mugs for attention in a classroom (a scene invoked simply by his acting and a single chair on stage), and plays for laughs. But his relationship with his body becomes more torrid as the hour wears on, with sounds clashing and jarring thanks to astoundingly clever use of a whole stage wired as an acoustic device. The curving ramp that at the start looks steely, invoking the skate culture so closely aligned to breaking, by the end becomes a burnished gold column, with Okur hovering angel-like above it. Mention must go to Barbara Kraft’s clever scenography and Bruno Brinas’ lighting design – both are simple but magnetic. As if Okur’s skills didn’t already seem to make him levitate, Brinas’ spotlights elevate him further so we’re shown moments of pure magic.

Like classical music? This is for you. Like b-boy moves? This, too, is for you. Like captivating, human narratives? 1mm does not disappoint.

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed – 11th October 2019

★★★★

“There’s never been a better time to make this study, and the Jermyn Street production does it with panache”

This is all very timely for The Ice Cream Boys. The sweet name belies the murky political intrigue at its heart. The single act play posits a meeting between two architects of the rainbow nation’s modern history: Zuma and his former intelligence services mastermind, Ronnie Kasrils.

And this is the truth of politics; complicated, messy issues led by complicated, messy and perhaps ultimately irredeemable individuals. There’s never been a better time to make this study, and the Jermyn Street production does it with panache.

Reviewed by Abi Davies

Photography by Robert Workman

The Ice Cream Boys

Jermyn Street Theatre until 2nd November

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Lilian Baylis Studio

Reviewed – 27th September 2019

★★★★

“The artfulness of his use of physicality is fascinating”

The lights come up on a pitch-black stage in which a grand piano and pianist seem to hover, suspended. The pianist begins; we feel as though we’re seeing the start of a grand, classical concert. But here, as so often during 1mm Au Dessus Du Sol, all is not what it seems.

Like classical music? This is for you. Like b-boy moves? This, too, is for you. Like captivating, human narratives? 1mm does not disappoint.

Reviewed by Abi Davies

Photography by Guillaume Rabgui

1mm Au Dessus Du Sol

Lilian Baylis Studio until 28th September

Previously reviewed at this venue: