★★★

“The four-person cast was wonderful: consistently strong, committed, and just generally vibesy”

Homo Alone, a Christmas show performing at The Other Palace’s Studio, is, shockingly, an adaptation of the cult classic film Home Alone, but just very gay.

It seems surplus to requirement to summarise the main plot points of the show because you’d be frankly unhinged to have seen this without having already seen the film. And yet: Kevin McAllister (Elliott Evans) is 8 and yet rampantly wrestling with his sexuality – I say ‘rampantly wrestling’ not so much because he is at war with internalised homophobia, but more because he is a very highly sexed 8-year-old. Family dysfunction sees Kevin alone over Christmas, and all hell breaks loose. Look up the film if you need more plot summary.

Written by Jodie Prenger and Bobby Delaney, and directed by Alex Jackson, Homo Alone was an uproarious success with the audience. Their hysterical laughter was an almost constant underscoring. For me, much of the humour felt akin to being wacked in the face by a silicone dildo: not very subtle and largely penis related. Of course, humour is subjective, but constant gags (literally) about the human body and scatological – or scatological adjacent – comedy is really my very least favourite. And it abounded.

Despite this, when other brands of comedy were used, there was much success, especially when the piece leant on absurdism and self-effacing, meta-theatrical commentary. The four-person cast was wonderful: consistently strong, committed, and just generally vibesy – with great singing voices, to boot. Yet, a couple of choices were a misstep: predominantly, the eking out of Catherine O’Hara’s CV. In this adaptation, Kate (Allie Dart) clones Moira Rose (of Schitt’s Creek renown). This was amusing a couple of times, but in the absence of O’Hara, quickly loses its charm. Still, all four actors multi-roled with great finesse – I especially enjoyed Steph Asamoah’s chameleonic switches, from Buzz, to gay air steward Francois, to Celine Dion. And the bird lady from Home Alone 2: this was a real highlight.

Set design (Louie Whitemore) was slick and effective: the neighbouring houses bordering the top of the stage like little pop-up figures was a lovely touch. Many of these auxiliary elements were, in fact, very slick, and when they weren’t, compensation was made through slicker improvisation and poorly stifled giggles.

Such improvisation and poorly stifled giggles were, perhaps, the highlight of the show. Though humour was its focus, the funniest moments – at least for me – were when the cast were confronted with the sheer ridiculousness of the show (a frequent occurrence) and contorted themselves with suppressed laughter. Whilst this was very enjoyable, unplanned moments of silliness generally shouldn’t be the standout hilarity of a show founded upon its silly humour.

One thing I’ve been pondering over is whether the constraints of adaptation weakened the production. Whilst the content of Home Alone is great material for pastiche and adaptation, the plot points this show had to cover and manipulate made it drag somewhat. It was as if they were obligatory but a nuisance, quickly ticked off the theatrical to-do list so they could get back to the singing, dildo wielding, and Moira-impersonating. Good for a Christmas giggle or two, but not the finest seasonal show out there.

EURYDICE at Jermyn Street Theatre

★★

“Occasionally it feels as though the actors, lost in their own underworld, are making it up as they go along”

“Orpheus was beginning to get very tired of sitting by his girlfriend on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice he had peeped into the book she was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Orpheus, ‘without pictures or conversation?’

Apart from the name changes, the opening line of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ would slot neatly into the stage directions of Sarah Ruhl’s reimagining of “Eurydice”. There is an almost childlike absurdism to the language. A kind of existential nonsense.

Eurydice and Orpheus are at the seaside: a couple of awkward teenagers, looking at life in different ways, but not really looking at each other. She is into her books; he just cares for his music. A bit of an odd couple. They don’t come across as being madly in love with each other at all, so when Orpheus pops the question, it feels like another game.

Meanwhile, Eurydice’s dead father is preparing his wedding speech. He obviously can’t attend the wedding, so he drops the letter down to earth, only for it to be picked up by the bowler-hatted, interesting yet sinister Lord of the Underworld. He picks up the letter, then promptly picks up Eurydice as she escapes her wedding party for a breath of fresh air. Eurydice follows him to his high-rise apartment where things get a bit uncomfortable. Tragedy strikes, and while Eurydice trips on the stairs to her death, the show itself plunges further into a rabbit hole of surrealism.

Ruhl’s intention is to take the focus away from Orpheus and to tell the story through Eurydice’s perspective. She certainly gives her more stage time, but we remain somewhat confused as to whom we should be paying attention to. Eve Ponsonby reliably portrays Eurydice as a woman stuck between two different worlds, but the audience are lodged between differing viewpoints. She has crossed the River Lethe in the Underworld thereby forgetting her earthly existence, even her husband’s name. Her journey of love, loss and grief (although without the memory – what is there to grieve?) is one that she must take on her own, yet we cannot escape the prominence of the men. Especially her father, played with conviction by Dickon Tyrrell. Keaton Guimarães-Tolley’s Orpheus is less secure and lacking passion. Joe Wiltshire Smith, as the Lord of the Underworld, has the most fun. Described as a nasty, interesting man, he is by far the most interesting character onstage. Not so much nasty as sinisterly bonkers. A warped Jimmy Clitheroe through the looking glass.

The narrative is underscored with interjections from the ‘stones’, played with a Pythonesque inanity by Katy Brittain, Tom Morley and Leyon Stolz-Hunter. Bizarrely dressed like creepy nuns, they are not so much a chorus but an echoing backing vocal. The timing of their delivery is often out of kilter, lending further banality to their presence – which we had already begun to question.

Director Stella Powell-Jones bravely takes on all the idiosyncrasies of the script but, even at under an hour and a half, the story still drags – weighed down further by its inconsistencies. Occasionally it feels as though the actors, lost in their own underworld, are making it up as they go along. We do wonder what world Ruhl is creating, and while we admire the ideas that shape her interpretation of “Eurydice”, we are not truly inspired to dig deeper. Curiouser and curiouser we aren’t.

HOMO ALONE

The Other Palace

★★★

“The four-person cast was wonderful: consistently strong, committed, and just generally vibesy”

HOMO ALONE at The Other Palace

Reviewed on 4th December 2024

by Violet Howson

Photography by Mark Senior

Previously reviewed at this venue:

HOMO ALONE

HOMO ALONE

EURYDICE at Jermyn Street Theatre

★★

“Occasionally it feels as though the actors, lost in their own underworld, are making it up as they go along”

EURYDICE at Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 8th October 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Alex Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue:

EURYDICE

EURYDICE