★★★★

“Racheal Ofori’s script is tight, and feels fresh and current”

In a punchy and peppy two-woman show, Flip! explores the dark underbelly of online content creation.

Best friends Carleen (Leah St Luce) and Crystal (Jadesola Odunjo) host a trendy, talk show style podcast. But while Crystal has dreams of fame, and has few qualms with trying to get it, Carleen is not so sure. As the girls struggle to make traction with their channel, the controversial ‘Flip’, an instant-fame video content platform with murky AI terms and conditions, looks increasingly tempting. The story evolves into a slightly predictable cautionary tale which asks how far these women are willing to go to chase their notoriety, and what does that look like in this digital age.

Emily Aboud’s direction is energetic and fun. It feels a lot like an online video, with KJ’s bright pastel lighting design and Eliyana Evans’ boppy pop sound design complementing this aesthetic. The two actors dance, prance, and act out memes in consistently entertaining short sharp scenes. The messaging is a bit obvious, and combined with the cast multi-rolling and creating live soundscapes, it does occasionally veer towards the GCSE drama end of things. However, there are some brilliant touches – every swear word is bleeped, the ‘shots’ they drink are toy milk bottles, and the way they show the difference between AI generated content and reality is really smart.

Racheal Ofori’s script is tight, and feels fresh and current. Some of the characterisation is lacking a bit, but the jokes land and the story is simply and cleverly shown.

It’s the performances that really make this production pop. St Luce and Odunjo speak and move in synch, spill fast paced tea and seem to be having as much fun as the audience. Some of the more serious moments feel a bit forced, but the genuine joy balances it out beautifully.

The set and costume (Anna Robinson) are simple but effective, as the actors need no more than two stools and some drawers to bring this show to life.

While it might not be saying anything brand new, the commentary in this play feels relevant and on moment. The risks around AI content creation are very real, and questions about its future implementation and impact are crucial to ask. It’s fun, while making a troubling point about consent in the digital era.

SONS OF THE PROPHET at the Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“The script feels very polished, and so packed with jokes and one-liners it can sometimes feel like the characters are being held at arm’s length”

The play opens from the point of view of a car crashing into a stag, quite a mean feat given that we’re watching Sons of the Prophet on Hampstead Theatre’s main stage. It gives us some inkling of the deft way director Bijan Sheibani will take this 11-year-old play by Stephen Karam and bring each line to life, directing but not smothering the actors, to deliver a pitch-perfect production.

Sons of the Prophet centres around the story of gay Lebanese-America Maronite Christian Joseph Douaihy (Irfan Shamji) who is trying to support his family in the wake of his father’s death. We meet his brother Charles (Eric Sirakian) and his uncle Bill (Raad Rawi) as Joseph lies in the hospital waiting for news from the doctor.

Karam writes the family’s dynamics perfectly. The bedside bickering is funny – this is a dark comedy after all – but it’s funny in an exhausting, claustrophobic way. Each family member repeatedly tells each other to stop talking, yet none of them do, and when Joseph puts his arm across his face the audience can feel the waves of stress emanating from him (all compounded by navigating the grim-sounding US healthcare system). Concurrently, Joseph must manage his Uncle Bill’s devout Marronite faith and optimism – “I’m saying be grateful, at least you have your health” – “I don’t have my health, we’re in a doctor’s office because my knees are radiating hot pain!”

Supporting characters propel the story forward as it hurtles towards an end with no resolutions, because that’s what happens to families like Douaihy’s in rural Pennsylvania. It transpires his dad’s car accident was caused by a star of Cedar Crest High School’s football team putting a fake stag in the middle of the road to see who would swerve to avoid it – we meet Vin (Raphael Akuwudike) as he attempts to apologise to the family with a terrible essay. The supporting cast, played by Holly Atkins and Sue Wallace (Physicians Assistant, Ticket Agent etc) are sublime, and both deserve a spin-off show for their extraordinarily well-brought-to-life characters. I would like to watch each of them on stage, for longer.

At points the stage feels like a 21st century Fawlty Towers, as Joseph tries to manage a revolving door of disastrous encounters and people (his horrific boss Gloria, played by Juliet Cowan, who makes everything about her), and news reporter/brief love interest Timothy (Jack Holden) who is desperate to break into the TV bigtime by exploiting the Douaihy family tragedy.

The script feels very polished, and so packed with jokes and one-liners it can sometimes feel like the characters are being held at arm’s length. The actors, with the exception of a few wavering American accents, fly with the lines. Any bumps lie entirely with the script, which feels extremely American, and an interesting choice for Hampstead Theatre in London 2022 (prompting the usual questions, why here, why now?) Perhaps it’s because it’s an omen of what life could become in Britain in the next 10 years under the wrong government hell-bent on privatising the NHS: a stark warning of the extra layers of stress and financial worry that will burden almost every family.

The set design (Samal Blak) is stark and unfussy, with a beautiful use of levels, which helps to tie in all the disparate family elements. Aline David’s movement direction introduces a sense of calmness at times during the show when it’s most necessary.

The play deals with the true sense of what it means to be human, as it revolves around the teachings of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet (On Pain, On Passion, On Work, etc). Explicit instructions in the playtext recommend that each character at heart is human – “Gloria may say ridiculous things, but her mannerisms aren’t ridiculous.” Karam calls for the play to be staged in ‘explicitly human spaces’.

The calmness of the final scene, as Joseph meets his kindergarten teacher while he does physiotherapy, is most poignant, and provides respite from his life’s chaos. He confides in her that the last time he was happy was when he was aged four, and although the line is delivered as a joke, there’s a pause from the audience before we laugh, as we all reflect en-masse that life is hard, and at times it can feel like a rolling wheel of disasters.

The play is tight, well-written, superbly acted, and an easy 105 minutes (no interval!) watch. It lifts rather than shatters, and does it with serious humour and a whack of seriously good acting.

FLIP! at the Soho Theatre

★★★★

“Racheal Ofori’s script is tight, and feels fresh and current”

FLIP! at the Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 10th November 2023

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Tristram Kenton

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Flip!

Flip!

SONS OF THE PROPHET at the Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“The script feels very polished, and so packed with jokes and one-liners it can sometimes feel like the characters are being held at arm’s length”

The set design (Samal Blak) is stark and unfussy, with a beautiful use of levels, which helps to tie in all the disparate family elements. Aline David’s movement direction introduces a sense of calmness at times during the show when it’s most necessary.

The play is tight, well-written, superbly acted, and an easy 105 minutes (no interval!) watch. It lifts rather than shatters, and does it with serious humour and a whack of seriously good acting.

Reviewed on 12th December 2022

by Eleanor Ross

Photography by Marc Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue: