Tag Archives: David Doyle

FABULOUS CREATURES

★★★

Arcola Theatre

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FABULOUS CREATURES at the Arcola Theatre

★★★

“Ismini Papaioannou’s costumes are brilliant, part cabaret part drag, they bring a vibrancy to the characters”

A hand snakes out from behind a glittering starry backdrop. Out slithers a performer, wrapped in glimmering metallic pleather – both mysterious and monstrous. ‘I am Charybdis a creature from the depths…’ their demeanour shifts, ‘and your host for the night!’

This is our chatty, flirty (and monstrous) MC (Hannah Van Der Westhuysen). They are joined by ‘Siren’ (Jazz Jenkins) and ‘Scylla’ (Kate Newman) to perform a series of musical numbers retelling and reclaiming their stories – ‘we used to kill and now we cabaret’. They are hopeful about rewriting history and no longer ‘being a step on a hero’s journey’. These are just some of the pithy and clever lyrics from writer and lyricist Quentin Beroud.

It’s entertaining, a little simplistic maybe, but a fun idea. But from a story perspective, it’s hard to know where it could go from there. This must have been a struggle for Beroud and writer/director Emily Louizou. The second act sees a more narrative driven story, where a mortal visits these monsters to ask for their help. At this point the energy changes, but the sombre tone and character led narrative have not been earned. A beautifully performed speech from Newman as the mortal feels a little hollow, in comparison to the campy caricatures of the beginning. The monsters, who’ve been caught in their dressing room, have shed some of their costume, which ruins the illusion. It is as if with their costume they’ve shed their extreme selves, and are much more human. It makes sense that there would need to be some story, but it clashes with the earlier tone and brings the whole energy down.

This is not the fault of the performers, all of whom are charismatic and complex. Jenkins has an incredible voice, Newman shows stark emotional range, and Van Der Westhuysen has a captivating stage presence.

Ismini Papaioannou’s costumes are brilliant, part cabaret part drag, they bring a vibrancy to the characters, and may be my favourite thing about this show. Scylla is imagined as a dog/human hybrid in an outfit made of wigs, Siren in an underwear as outerwear lingerie moment, with feathers and taloned boots. As mentioned, Charybdis is in skin-tight pleather, part seaweed part scales.

I’m not sure who the audience for this is. Retelling Greek myths is always popular, they’re great stories, and spinning them as tales of female empowerment and subjugation should work well. But this isn’t bringing anything new to the stories, apart from some great tunes (Irene Skylakaki) and joyous choreography (Ioli Filippakopoulou). While perhaps that is enough, the whole show feels strangely empty.


Reviewed on 28th May 2024

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Sophie Giddens

 


 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE BOOK OF GRACE | ★★★★★ | May 2024
LIFE WITH OSCAR | ★★★ | April 2024
WHEN YOU PASS OVER MY TOMB | ★★★★★ | February 2024
SPUTNIK SWEETHEART | ★★★ | October 2023
GENTLEMEN | ★★★★ | October 2023
THE BRIEF LIFE & MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF BORIS III, KING OF BULGARIA | ★★★★★ | September 2023
THE WETSUITMAN | ★★★ | August 2023
UNION | ★★★ | July 2023
DUCK | ★★★★ | June 2023
POSSESSION | ★★★★★ | June 2023

FABULOUS CREATURES

FABULOUS CREATURES

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We Were Promised Honey!

We Were Promised Honey!

★★★★

Soho Theatre

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WE WERE PROMISED HONEY! at the Soho Theatre

★★★★

We Were Promised Honey!

“It’s a sunny outlook on a very bleak landscape, but somehow it does the trick”

 

After singing along to two choruses of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ with writer-performer Sam Ward and the rest of the audience, my theatre buddy takes her arm from around my shoulders as the lights go up, turns to me, and, smiling blissfully, says, “I didn’t get it.” That’s almost as much as you need to know really.

We Were Promised Honey! is a calmly conveyed confusion: In August 2018 a baggage handler, Richard, stole a plane and, after performing some amazing stunts, inevitably died on crash landing. Ward interlaces this with some very controlled audience participation, and long surreal monologues about what will happen after the play is finished- in five hours most of you will be asleep, in eight hours, one of you will send an email saying, ‘Great, thanks Claire’ before walking into your boss’s office and quitting to become a farmer. In fifty years, one of you will think you’re Jesus. In 500 years, when the sky turns black, one of you will turn to your partner and say, ‘Why does it always end like this?’

The evening is split into three, and before the start of each section, Ward gives his audience a choice: We can sit here in silence until the advertised runtime of the show is over, or, even though you already know it’s going to end badly, you can hear what happens next. I can’t imagine there’s ever been an audience so hive-minded and strong-willed not to say ‘I would like to know what happens next’ so it’s not much of a risk, but it makes the point Ward is, I think, trying to make: Yes, we are all going to die, and the world will eventually end, and one day the last black hole will eat itself and there will be nothing left. But in the meantime, there’s plenty to see and do and say, and we needn’t sit in silence, waiting for the end to come.

It’s a sunny outlook on a very bleak landscape, but somehow it does the trick, and rather than feeling despairing and solemn, the audience leaves the auditorium heartened, in an almost festival atmosphere. Of course, that might not be Ward’s point at all, and maybe I just didn’t get it. But paired with David Doyle’s seemingly godly lighting, Carmel Smickersgill’s contemplative soundscape, and Ward’s smiling self-assuredness, it doesn’t really matter how it’s supposed to end. The point is I enjoyed the journey.

 

Reviewed on 23rd November 2022

by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Mihaela Bodlovic

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

An Evening Without Kate Bush | ★★★★ | February 2022
Y’Mam | ★★★★ | May 2022
Hungry | ★★★★★ | July 2022
Oh Mother | ★★★★ | July 2022
Super High Resolution | ★★★ | November 2022

 

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