★★★

“an extraordinary piece that gets under our skin”

There is a brutal honesty that runs through Will Lord’s debut play, “The Billionaire Inside Your Head”. A truth that is recognisable and unsettling. Lord cuts straight to the chase with an opening monologue delivered with panache, and a touch of menace, by Allison McKenzie. We are asked questions we would never admit to asking ourselves. But on reflection we all do. More often than we’d care to divulge. Nobody offers up an answer (McKenzie provides it anyway). We squirm a bit in our seats, and realise that the traverse seating plan is probably deliberate. We are looking straight at the audience opposite. We are looking at ourselves.

It comes as a relief when the fourth wall is rebuilt and we are drawn into the main narrative of the play (the comfort is short-lived, however). We are in the basement office of a debt collecting firm, bookended by ramshackle filing cabinets. Richie (Nathan Clarke) and Darwin (Ashley Margolis) are old school mates starting out on the lowest rung of the cooperate ladder. They still carry their childhood dreams of becoming billionaires. Hence the title of the play, although “The Voice Inside Your Head” would provide a more accurate description. Richie has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and it is this subtext that quickly comes to the surface and dominates the story.

Clarke and Margolis have a natural onstage chemistry. Friendship, affection and rivalry co-exist as if they were close siblings. Cracks appear, however, when they find they are competing for the same promotion, and the quirkiness of their dialogue – often extremely funny – takes on darker shades. It so happens that their boss is Darwin’s mother, Nicole, (Allison McKenzie), so nepotism versus merit is another spanner that Lord throws into the works. It is possibly all a bit too much and this overcrowding of ideas can lead to confusion. McKenzie plays the mother, and also ‘The Voice’ inside Richie’s head, but with little distinction. Dressed in her crisp white trouser suit for both roles, the accent and vocal inflections never change. We rely on James Whiteside’s lighting; bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling light up and flicker as a cartoon-like – but not inappropriate – metaphor whenever McKenzie becomes ‘The Voice’.

Eventually ‘The Voice’ overshadows the action, which is a shame. And we feel we are in two separate dramas. Clarke and Margolis are an engaging couple, verging on bromance. They make fun of each other. Margolis’ Darwin is a bit of a dope-smoking slob, self-assured and secure while Clarke’s Richie is on always edge. The manifestations of his OCD, initially comical, swiftly turn quite sinister and surreal. Lord, himself diagnosed with OCD, tackles the subject with integrity and honesty, but injects extravagant melodrama – which is distracting. Anna Ledwich directs with respect for the writing, yet it appears that she is struggling to decide in what genre she is working.

There are serious issues at stake here, but it is difficult to take them seriously. Richie’s condition is demonised somewhat – the voice in his head grows sadistic, psychotic, angry. Lord’s intentions are applauded and the gripping performances from the cast are applauded even more. It is an extraordinary piece that gets under our skin, but it is administered too indelicately. A little less force would drive the point home more. Nevertheless, it is a compelling watch, and one that certainly makes us question our own voice. We all have one. Maybe we don’t always admit it. The truth is often unsettling and, at least, Lord doesn’t shy away from it.

THE CABINET MINISTER at the Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★★

“a lavish excursion into genteel decadence, handsomely mounted and delivered with flair.”

The Twombleys’ London townhouse could pass as a railway tearoom such is the scale of arrivals and departures in Nancy Carroll’s perky interpretation of Arthur Wing Pinero’s family farce.

Designer Janet Bird’s sumptuous Victorian set works wonders on the Menier’s compact stage. She creates more marvels – and thankfully more space – in Act Two’s re-creation of Drumdurris Castle, a transformation that won interval applause.

Costumes, too, are charming and elegant, unlike the inner workings of the strife-torn Twombleys who are facing a blizzard of debts and bills. Head of the household Sir Julian, the Cabinet Minister of the title, is also on the verge of resignation and disgrace following accusations of “accepting favours” in the bear pit of Westminster. No change there then.

Although the play’s promise is of political satire, it is matters of heart and purse that occupy a giddy procession of plots and subplots. The motive is money and marriage, the latter invariably facilitating the former.

Consequently, Nicholas Rowe, as Sir Julian, appears somewhat lost amid the sugar-rush garrulousness of the very modern ladies working hard to make ends – and couples – meet.

More dynamic and focused is his wife, former farmgirl Kitty Twombley, who is forever in a whirl, heading off financial calamity and protecting her brood with nefarious schemes. The talented Nancy Carroll, who also adapted the play, ensures her dazzling Kitty-with-claws is the multi-faceted fulcrum of this dizzying merry-go-round.

“It is fun and it is funny”

In an ensemble cast without notable flaws, special mention must go to Dillie Kean’s decrepit Lady Macphail. Her phlegmy Scottish brogue amusingly evokes the misty mountains, majestic pines and haunting pipes of her homeland. These sentimental interludes are in comedic contrast to the gnomic utterances of her awkward son Sir Colin (Matthew Woodyatt) who, commendably and in contrast to the general fevered tone, “refuses to fill the silence with bluster”.

Because much of the play’s frantic delight is to be found in baroque circumlocutions, leavened with sly quips, vegetable gags and double entendres constructed to land comfortably on the modern ear without entirely losing the spirit of the 1890 original. It is fun and it is funny.

Elsewhere Sara Crowe’s stately matchmaker Dora indulges in “practical interference” while Phoebe Fildes and Laurence Ubong Williams bring a touch of skulduggery and sharp practice as the blackmailing Lacklustre siblings, chancers on the make.

Director Paul Foster keeps the action tight, the lines crisp and the pacing modern, although he is forever combatting the grating anachronisms of class and entitlement (presumably the reason behind the addition of an unnecessary coda).

The 12-strong cast seem to delight in each other’s excellent work and there’s an anarchic energy which, although occasionally threatening to overwhelm the piece, ultimately finds a resolution to match its promise.

The Cabinet Minister is a lavish excursion into genteel decadence, handsomely mounted and delivered with flair.

THE BILLIONAIRE INSIDE YOUR HEAD

Hampstead Theatre

★★★

“an extraordinary piece that gets under our skin”

THE BILLIONAIRE INSIDE YOUR HEAD

Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 26th September 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Rich Lakos

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE BILLIONAIRE

THE BILLIONAIRE

THE BILLIONAIRE

THE CABINET MINISTER at the Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★★

“a lavish excursion into genteel decadence, handsomely mounted and delivered with flair.”

“It is fun and it is funny”

THE CABINET MINISTER at the Menier Chocolate Factory

Reviewed on 28th September 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Tristram Kenton

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE CABINET MINISTER

THE CABINET MINISTER

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