★★★

“its infectious silliness makes for lots of big laughs”

A misinterpretation of the film ‘Jurassic Park’ sets off a Kafkaesque nightmare of university bureaucracy and conspiracy in Tim Foley’s ‘Jurassic’ at the Soho Theatre. The two-hander pits the stubborn, righteously deluded Dean of the University, ‘Dean’, against the increasingly exasperated academic Jay, driven to derangement by a misunderstanding that is costing him his sanity, as well as his job. There are plenty of fun and silly jokes in this very taut one-act play, but the balance between the far-fetched absurdist concept and genuine critique of elitism and bureaucracy is a tricky one. It can be a challenge to suspend disbelief and feel invested in Jay’s Sisyphean battle to be reinstated in the face of a post-truth campus culture.

Matt Holt’s Dean and Alastair Michael’s Jay are perfect foils for each-other, as their initial conflict – Dean’s belief that the film Jurassic Park is indeed a documentary revealing the existence of dinosaurs- costs Jay his job in the palaeontology department. The university provides an ideal setting for a tale of misinformation and power politics, with funding cuts, a perpetually absent principal, staff feuds and spilled secrets all occurring in the background. The absurd central misunderstanding demands the audience’s commitment to the bit, which we can enthusiastically give – but Dean’s initial delusion is resolved quite quickly, and this leaves space to wonder about the script’s practical corner-cutting. Questions like “Why has there been no mention of an employment tribunal?” and “Can you actually campaign to be chancellor of the university you’ve just been fired from?” plague the mind. But maybe that’s just the bureaucrat in me.

Meanwhile, particular praise must be given to movement director Yandass Ndlovu’s transition scenes, which see Dean and Jay devolve and spar with each other as prehistoric creatures. These scenes free up the play to jump forward in time effortlessly, as well as harkening back to the good old days when creatures could squawk, scratch and lunge at each other without all the red tape. Anna Short and Patch Middleton’s sound design bring a purposefully minimal, quotidian office setting to life in tense and climatic moments, and there is some great work with onstage lighting when the rivals’ feud becomes more akin to a police interrogation.

Piers Black’s slick direction means that the tug of war between Dean and Jay never grows slack. But to create forward propulsion while the characters remain locked in this stubborn power dynamic, the play introduces higher and higher stakes that occasionally deviate in tone from the play’s absurd concept. There’s a murder, which remains darkly comic but feels a little crowbarred in. Subsequently, a reveal about Jay’s own misdeeds, which have been subtly alluded to with his frequenting of student bars, do make it quite difficult to maintain the sympathy for his character that has swept the audience along on his futile journey. As the play reaches its climax, any catharsis we might feel on his behalf is marred slightly, and although the ending comes satisfying full-circle, it does stretch the possibilities of play’s universe a bit too far to feel entirely earned.

Foley’s play clearly relishes in its absurd concept, and its infectious silliness makes for lots of big laughs. Still, I think there is more satirical material to mine from this recognisable tale of faculty politics, without the introduction of some tonal inconsistencies and the completely off-the-rails plot developments, however gratifying they may be.

CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★

“The final scenes are affecting – the clever use of lighting being one of the stars of the show”

A farmer, a petty thief and a Jewish philosopher walk up to some bars. Sounds like the beginning of a bad taste joke. And it is. This is the sickest of all jokes as the three mismatched Third Reich prisoners – the eponymous Canned Goods – are fattened, flattered and sold a lie about their date with destiny.

So why are they receiving unexpected kindnesses from their SS jailers? The answer is to be found in the programme notes which somewhat drains the evening of tension.

This is writer Erik Kahn’s retelling of the Gleiwitz incident on August 31, 1939, which effectively began World War Two.

The Gleiwitz Incident was a false flag operation carried out by Nazi Germany to create a pretext for invading Poland. In the incident, SS operatives, dressed in Polish military uniforms, attacked a German radio station in the town of Gleiwitz.

To bolster the illusion, they used the bodies of prisoners, dressed them in Polish uniforms, and left them at the site as “evidence” for the Press to photograph.

Much of what is known about Gleiwitz comes from the affidavit of SS-Sturmbannführer Alfred Naujocks at the Nuremberg trials. In this uneven production, Naujocks – all oily smiles, cognac, and swirling cigarette smoke – re-creates the operation as grand theatre, alluding to our complicity as docile and gullible voyeurs.

Among those whose bodies were left behind were that of Honiok (Tom Wells) who had Polish sympathies. Others were anonymous prisoners of Dachau and here they are revived and given names and lives to lose. They are wry Jewish teacher Birnbaum (Charlie Archer) and petty criminal and anti-Semite Kruger (Rowan Polonski), naively patriotic to the end. Archer and Polonski provide the most nuanced performances of an evening consisting mostly of archetypes.

The conceit is rich in potential – stick three contrasting figures in a cell, give them an occasional stir by the provocative Naujacks (a lupine Dan Parr) and then set them raging against the dying of the light. But the three never have time to evolve much beyond their prescriptive origin stories, the script lacking rhythm and momentum in director Charlotte Cohn’s ambitious but over fussy production.

The play is presented as a series of academic explorations of war – from polemics on anti-Semitism, to the role of God on the battlefield – issued as pleas from clueless pawns in a global conflict.

The prisoners, whose performances are rigorous and well-constructed, hold out the tantalising hope that they might break free from their oratorical straitjackets and become rounded characters, but this promise is too frequently snatched away in the rush to hammer home some on-the-nose point about Hitler being a bad sort.

The final scenes are affecting – the clever use of lighting (by Ryan Joseph Stafford) being one of the stars of the show. And the image of a press photographer posing bodies brings us smack up to date with evocations of Abu Ghraib and the shocking iconography of degradation.

Ultimately, though, the play demands less of us than the subject matter should insist upon.

JURASSIC

Soho Theatre

★★★

“its infectious silliness makes for lots of big laughs”

JURASSIC

Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 20th November 2025

by Emily Lipscombe

Photography by Chris Payne

Recently reviewed at Soho Theatre venues:

JURASSIC

JURASSIC

JURASSIC

CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★

“The final scenes are affecting – the clever use of lighting being one of the stars of the show”

CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 20th January 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Senior

Recently reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

Canned Goods

Canned Goods

Canned Goods

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