INFAMOUS at Jermyn Street Theatre

★★★★

“There are wonderful moments of humour and wit”

Lady Emma Hamilton was a truly fascinating figure. Reading her Wikipedia page is akin to a modern gossip column – salacious affairs, a secret love child and an obsession with keeping up appearances for the media. Emma is perhaps most well-known for her ‘attitudes’ – alluring tableaux vivants in which she portrayed sculptures and paintings – made her an international superstar and started a fashion for a draped Grecian style of dress.

Directed by Michael Oakley and written by April De Angelis, Infamous delivers a neat summary of it all whilst asking its audience to consider whether a woman can really be famous and respectable.

Using a hand time skip, Infamous presents Emma at two different points in her life: 1798 and 1815. In the former, Emma is played by Rose Quentin and her mother-cum-housekeeper, Mrs Cadogan, played by her real-life mother Caroline Quentin. Here, Emma is vivacious, at the peak of her fame. Married to Sir William Hamilton, she lives in the beautiful Palazzo Sessa overlooking Mount Vesuvius. However, Emma has her sights set on becoming the mistress or indeed wife of the great Lord Horatio Nelson and climb further up the social and political ladder.

Yet, by 1815, Emma (now played by Caroline) is near-destitute living with her daughter by Nelson – Horatia (Rose) – in a barn in Calais. Abandoned by Nelson’s family after his death, the duo has nothing to her name. Emma, consumed by drink, encourages Horatia to pursue the local mayor’s son in hopes that her daughter will repeat her own success in rising to high society. Horatia serves a similar purpose to Saffy from Absolutely Fabulous – the sensible foil to her eccentric mother.

There is great chemistry between the two Quentens. Caroline is expectedly wonderful – demonstrating her incredible range by playing two entirely different characters with such ease. Rose is good too – best as Horatia. Rose’s young Emma is a bit overblown at points – her accent a bit too overblown. The younger Quenten also appears to be a fan of a knowing glance to the audience which at points unfortunately undercuts her performance and our immersion in the play. Riad Richie provides great support despite most of his lines being in French or Italian for his respective roles – Vincenzo and Jacques Fournier – in the two halves.

There are wonderful moments of humour and wit. Caroline excels as mad old Emma and her rendition of the attitudes for a confused Jacques garners the most laughs. The second half has a quicker pace and more interest of the two – we are at first amused by our selfish lead’s fall from grace but then feel tremendous pathos at her death, in no small part to Caroline’s amazing performance.

The set is excellently designed by Fotini Dimou. The painted wall panels of the Italian villa transform seamlessly into the haphazard wooden slats of the French barn in which Emma and Horatia are forced to reside. Christopher Naire provides gentle but effective lighting – the soft but vibrant light of dusk and dawn rendered beautifully.

Lady Emma Hamilton was a woman of pure ambition. Lampooned in the media and gathering equal number enemies and supports wherever she went, it is hard not to admire her dedication to fame, fortune and influence. Infamous shows a bit of everything, never feeling too rushed or too slow, and has a great acting duo at its heart. Well worth a watch.

INFAMOUS at Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 12th September 2023

by Flora Doble

Photography by Steve Gregson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Spiral | ★★ | August 2023

Farm Hall | ★★★★ | March 2023

Love All | ★★★★ | September 2022

Cancelling Socrates | ★★★★ | June 2022

Orlando | ★★★★ | May 2022

Footfalls and Rockaby | ★★★★★ | November 2021

The Tempest | ★★★ | November 2021

This Beautiful Future | ★★★ | August 2021

Infamous

Click here to read all our latest reviews

★★★★★

“Miriam Battye’s script is refreshingly honest and bitingly funny”

Boy meets girl. Girl harangues boy about the exhausting state of modern dating. Will girl persuade boy to stay? She has a pitch – settle for each other, and so remove the hellish search for ‘the one’. Can these two really set love aside and hack the system?

This two-hander is a push and pull, with both characters persuading and panicking in equal parts. It’s desperate, tense and raw. When it’s not unspeakably bleak it’s completely endearing.

Miriam Battye’s script is refreshingly honest and bitingly funny. The dialogue sizzles between these two hopeless individuals and the disastrous date comes alive as it spirals into a whirlwind of potential. Katie Posner’s energetic and dynamic direction keep the momentum whizzing along. This is vital. The darkness is always there, but there’s barely a gap between punchlines to process it. The characters are wincingly vulnerable. At times this is almost physically painful, you want to shout at them to stop talking, but the strength of the script and the direction means you’re back laughing with (or, at) them a minute later.

The play is about modern love, and men and women, but it’s also about these two tired and broken people. The characterisation is complex and well developed. She is more than bitter and he is more than a bit basic. Their whole worlds are alluded to, she affirms she’s very successful, but we never find out her job. It is repeatedly, if subtly hinted that he has no friends. There are stereotypes that are explored, but it never feels lazy, they are nodded to in a way which allows the play to become a broader social commentary.

“This play is funny, and unusual and feels extremely modern”

Letty Thomas (Her) and Archie Backhouse (Him) are sublime. Their comedy, chemistry and cohesion are key in making this show a delight to watch. The moment when Her tough mask slips, and she breaks down is executed by Thomas beautifully. It is a moment of true poignancy. Backhouse has particularly good comic timing, and the audience responds well to his baffled nice-boy jokes. However, it is when they work together, sparring and wheedling, that the performances really shine. In observing the easy, and genuinely sexy connection of the characters, it is important to note the role of intimacy director, Robbie Taylor Hunt.

The play is staged in the round, with a table and chairs that revolve on the spinning centre of the stage, lit from above by an overhanging floor lamp. Rhys Jarman designed the set, a highlight of which was the lamp turning into a working tap, filling Thomas’ cup with ‘beer’ while the stage span wildly. The lighting design by Rajiv Pattani does feel a little familiar, we have seen neon lights that flicker with rising tension a few times, but it does underline the tone nicely and it is effective, if not fresh.

This play is funny, and unusual and feels extremely modern. There are questions about power in it, there were moments where if the genders were reversed it would have been deeply uncomfortable, but that is in many ways the point. The play questions the conventions of dating, and love, and gender in an original and sparky way.

INFAMOUS at Jermyn Street Theatre

★★★★

“There are wonderful moments of humour and wit”

INFAMOUS at Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 12th September 2023

by Flora Doble

Photography by Steve Gregson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Infamous

Infamous

STRATEGIC LOVE PLAY at the Soho Theatre

★★★★★

“Miriam Battye’s script is refreshingly honest and bitingly funny”

“This play is funny, and unusual and feels extremely modern”

STRATEGIC LOVE PLAY at the Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 7th September 2023

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Pamela Raith

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Strategic Love Play

Strategic Love Play