★★★½

“grazes idly and widely on ideas it can never properly explore”

There’s something wrong with Ryan. You can tell by his haunted expression, his furious contempt and his presence at A&E. He’s having a bad night.

There’s an empty box on the form where he can write in his symptoms but, better still, why not tell us, take us right back to the beginning, or at least the beginning of the end.

The point being: he can’t wait to leave. A&E, London, which he hates, and his current life, which he hates even more.

Teenager Ryan is living a life on the margins. Cheap flat, cheap booze, cheap encounters, always poor, cadging off mates and strangers.

He’s not a Londoner by birth or inclination but his big brother Ben told him that, if he wanted to make it rich, he had to come to the capital. But Ben is an accountant, doing well for himself, with a set of boarish colleagues and an influencer girlfriend. Any minute now they’ll be settling down, having babies, hashtag living their best life, which seems to bother Ryan more than it should.

Ryan is living a very recognisable London life. He has two GCSEs so he cycles for Deliveroo, and work is interspersed with empty encounters thanks to Grindr and his good looks. He lives in Hounslow with three flatmates where he occupies his time having rainbow hangovers. Everything’s not quite right and now the 19-year-old is on the radar of predatory Richard who fancies some young flesh.

Ryan isn’t that bothered about Richard but he’s less bothered about himself so it all evens out in the end.

Zach Hawkins, who plays the raw and rudderless Ryan, is blessed with an open face and a blank expression on which to layer these experiences. He has the stage solo for 75 minutes to tell us Ryan’s story and is a powerful and captivating presence.

He brings the teenager to life with a blend of puzzlement and self-loathing but Ryan never has enough self-awareness to help us mine for answers. His bleak liaisons mean nothing, and he can’t even rouse himself to nihilism, so he just pinballs between hook-ups, sleazy bars and neon kerbsides where he slumps, drunk or high.

He never strikes it rich, never strikes it lucky. He’s too young to know what’s real and what’s just passing through. Because of this, the production – written and directed by Stephen Leach – grazes idly and widely on ideas it can never properly explore. That means the A&E trauma, when it comes, is just another numbing chapter in a formless and chaotic life.

Ryan is hollow, feckless and stroppy. That Hawkins manages to engage us, despite Ryan’s armour of wanton indifference, is a tribute to the actor’s earnest persistence, demanding we should care when moving on is much, much easier.

MARCELLA’S MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT at the Jack Studio Theatre

★★

“Lincoln is at her best when she portrays characters from her past”

Versatile actress Mary Lincoln writes and performs this hour long one person show, directed by Samuel Ripman. The story is set in Marcella’s loft – a deathtrap of a space with low headbanging beams and dodgy electrics, strewn with a lifetime of boxes and miscellanea (Production Designer Mark Tildesley). Marcella’s quandary is that she is about to put into the loft eight identical items bought as redundant Christmas presents but feels in the spirit of decluttering that she should throw out eight existing items. This leads her down memory lane and she regales us with a series of anecdotes as she selects the items for recycling – mostly old costumes collected in a lifetime as a theatrical chorus girl. Of course, the simplest thing would be to have thrown out the eight items of no use whatsoever and hung on to these precious items with their history and their memories. But hey-ho.

Marcella is a sprightly lady in her sixties dressed appropriately for chores in black dungarees and a headscarf (Costume Designer Suzanne Bell). Right from the outset, she steps forward to speak to the audience. Is this Mary Lincoln the actor-writer stepping out of character and speaking as herself or Marcella the character? Are we invited into Marcella’s loft to be part of the drama or is this a sort of stand-up comedy routine? I am confused.

Marcella clambers around the space. Some of the movement is clumsy, which is understandable as this is a cluttered roof space after all. But showing the movement from ground floor into loft, and vice versa feels uncomfortable. And the costume rail is positioned so far upstage that Marcella disappears from view when she goes behind it which is unfortunate. Her constant rattling of the clothes hangers is also an irritation.

Some of the costumes come with their own half-remembered showtunes that we hear Marcella humming inside her head. A lovely idea, but with the lo-fi sound recording and whispery rendition the sound comes out as more underwhelming than ghostly. And in case we don’t understand what is happening here, a coloured spotlight onto the clothing rail gives us a visual clue. (Lighting/Sound Designer Stuart Glover).

I’m sorry to say that nothing here is very interesting. An acting out of the poem Megan Marries Herself whilst Marcella parades around in a hideous veil that she has long ago bought from a charity shop (why?) loses direction. The crucial central story of the green coat has Marcella dressing herself in plastic wrapping, and despite the moving nature of the tale’s poignant ending the rendition is too long and Marcella’s sweeping movements of the plastic covering too distracting to be fully effective.

To give the actress credit though, this is Mary’s magnificently remembered monologue, maintained with moments of melodrama. Lincoln is at her best when she portrays characters from her past; playing her younger self playing St Joan is very funny, the supportive Scottish drama teacher is endearing, and best of all is her portrayal of Marcella’s Italian Catholic matriarch. Perhaps these elements of the play could be extended further – allow the actress to act – and reduce the breaking of the fourth wall.

A programme note explains the genesis of the work and the family nature of the piece. Perhaps, though, this actor and director are too close to the stories the play contains and it needs an outside interpreter to maximise the work’s dramatic potential. Just a thought.

Tag Archives: Jack Studio Theatre

CAN’T WAIT TO LEAVE

★★★½

Jack Studio Theatre

CAN’T WAIT TO LEAVE at Jack Studio Theatre

★★★½

“grazes idly and widely on ideas it can never properly explore”

CAN’T WAIT TO LEAVE at Jack Studio Theatre

Reviewed on 7th November 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Max Caine

Previously reviewed at this venue:

MARCELLA’S MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT | ★★ | September 2024

DEPTFORD BABY | ★★★ | July 2024

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING | ★★★ | August 2022

RICHARD II | ★★★★★ | February 2022

HOLST: THE MUSIC IN THE SPHERES | ★★★★★ | January 2022

PAYNE: THE STARS ARE FIRE | ★★★ | January 2022

TRESTLE | ★★★ | June 2021

CAN’T WAIT TO LEAVE

CAN’T WAIT TO LEAVE

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

MARCELLA’S MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT

★★

Jack Studio Theatre

MARCELLA’S MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT at the Jack Studio Theatre

★★

“Lincoln is at her best when she portrays characters from her past”