THE ALCHEMIST at the Mathematical Institute Oxford University

★★★★

“Director Anna Tolputt has successfully transformed this 17th century drama into an immediate and accessible theatrical experience that is great fun for the audience”

There are a few benefits to reviewing plays but having money chucked at you by the performers (as happened to your reviewer tonight) isn’t usually one of them. The stage cash was returned and although I can’t guarantee this exact kind of audience participation if you go along to see Creation Theatre’s take on The Alchemist, I can promise an enjoyable evening with plenty of audience engagement with an enthusiastic and committed cast. And you may even be asked to take custody of an inflatable doll.

A maths institute common room becomes a swanky penthouse (designer Delphine Du Barry) and a view of the dreaming spires stands in for London in this pacey updating of Ben Jonson’s most popular comedy which gleefully and timelessly satirises human greed and fallibility. The play was first performed in 1610, not far from its current venue. At that time the Puritans and the Plague were clamping down on dangerous pleasures like theatre and Oxford academics were banned from attending – but even so it was a hit. It has continued to be regularly performed since late Victorian times. Some historical aspects, such as Jonson’s very understandable critique of the Puritans, may have been lost in this particular translation, but his zest for progressively more manic comedy shines in a smart update in which the Black Death is replaced by a more contemporary pandemic.

Make no mistake, this is a wordy play which keeps up its fairly hectic pace throughout the evening. Jonson follows the classical convention of unity in action, time and place, giving the piece a sharp focus. Sometimes unfamiliar words flow rapidly. It’s language with a feisty and raw quality quite unlike the lyrical beauty of familiar speeches by Jonson’s contemporary and rival William Shakespeare.

Creation Theatre are renowned for their original performances of classic theatre in unusual locations. Director Anna Tolputt has successfully transformed this 17th century drama into an immediate and accessible theatrical experience that is great fun for the audience. A talented ensemble consisting of Herb Cuanalo, Clive Duncan, Nicholas Osmond, Claire Redcliffe and Emily Woodward each take on three or more roles, with Cuanalo, Osmond and Woodward making up a tight knit trio of quick changing con artists that gleefully gull victims played by the talented Clive Duncan and Claire Redcliffe.

THE ALCHEMIST at the Mathematical Institute Oxford University

Reviewed on 13th October 2023

by David Woodward

Photography by Les Gordon

The Alchemist will play in London from 27 – 29 October at V.O Gallery, W1S, Click on image below for further details

“There are moments of excellence … but in the end the story just doesn’t quite hold”

Sorry We Didn’t Die at Sea, directed by Daniel Emery, is a surreal satire about the perils of people-smuggling. Set in a near-future, Europe’s economy has collapsed and three English citizens place their trust in a human trafficker, setting off to an unknown destination in his brand-new shipping container.

While there’s the obvious social commentary – what if Europeans were the ones arriving illegally on foreign shores, desperate for help – on the whole this is more about the dynamics of an unlikely trio forced to rely on each other in order to survive.

The setting consists of a three-sided red curtain. It serves both as the walls for the shipping container and as a backdrop to the smuggler’s surreal barker-like digressions in which he educates the audience on random bits of information he’s picked up from the internet on these long, boring journeys: pasta recipes, the etymology of “empathy”, the history of the shipping container. Felix Garcia Guyer, playing the smuggler, or as he’s known in the programme, “The Burly One”, is, as with the rest of the characters, a caricature of a person. But his combination of intimidating ruffian and bizarrely well-informed lunatic brings an unknown element to the otherwise fairly plodding plot.

Marco Young’s “The Stocky One”, escaping from a serious conviction, is off-set by Will Bishop’s “The Tall One”, a clueless toff. And as the only woman on stage, Yasmine Haller is, predictably, “The Beautiful One”.

The story of human trafficking gone wrong is a major one, and it’s easy to see why writer Emanuele Aldrovandi would whittle it down to these archetypal characters, but it results in the story losing its way somewhat. It’s hard to know what we’re supposed to take away from it and on top of that, after 95 minutes straight through, the ending simply trails off.

There are moments of excellence, and the conversations around what one is willing to do to survive are genuinely brutal, but in the end the story just doesn’t quite hold.

THE ALCHEMIST at the Mathematical Institute Oxford University

★★★★

“Director Anna Tolputt has successfully transformed this 17th century drama into an immediate and accessible theatrical experience that is great fun for the audience”

THE ALCHEMIST at the Mathematical Institute Oxford University

Reviewed on 13th October 2023

by David Woodward

Photography by Les Gordon

The Alchemist will play in London from 27 – 29 October at V.O Gallery, W1S, Click on image below for further details

More From This Reviewer:

The Alchemist

The Alchemist

SORRY WE DIDN’T DIE AT SEA at the Park Theatre

★★½

“There are moments of excellence … but in the end the story just doesn’t quite hold”

SORRY WE DIDN’T DIE AT SEA at the Park Theatre

Reviewed on 14th September 2023

by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Charles Flint

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Sorry we Didn’t Die at Sea

Sorry we Didn’t Die at Sea