★★★

“diverting, packed with plot, character and incident”

Writer Richard Bean’s stage version of House of Games, directed by Jonathan Kent, is a theatrical sleight-of-hand that both honours and undercuts its source. Adapted from David Mamet’s 1987 film and story, the play tries to pull off a double con: replicating the clipped tension of Mamet’s neo-noir while layering in jokes, cartoonish supporting characters, and a dash of caper comedy.

The result, though often entertaining, is tonally confused – a production unsure whether it wants to unsettle or amuse.

The story follows Margaret (Lisa Dillon), a buttoned-up Harvard clinical psychoanalyst and successful writer. Bored with her uptown life, she becomes embroiled in the seductive world of low-rent grifters after she tries to rescue a client Billy Hahn (Oscar Lloyd) from a gambling debt.

She enters the titular House of Games – a down-at-heel Chicago bar – and meets smooth Mike, (Richard Harrington) a charming hustler whose world of deceit both appals and excites her. Margaret is inspired to research another book which provides her with an excuse to hang around and (improbably) play bit parts in Mike’s cons, a transgression fuelled by a growing passion for her bad boy lover.

As the scams multiply, so do the psychological twists, leading to a final turn that should, in theory, leave the audience reeling.

But where Mamet’s film presented its narrative with razor-edged minimalism – quick cuts, shadows, tight silences – the stage version feels the need to say everything out loud, slowly and with a chirpy smile.

The introduction of a broad comic sidekicks and the abundance of wisecracks contribute to an atmosphere closer to a sub-Ocean’s 11 pastiche than a psychological thriller. The quipping gang have plenty of character to play with – Robin Soans’ veteran Joey particularly fun – but the gags come at the expense of any menace and tension.

Bean’s script confines all the action to just two locations and designer Ashley Martin-Davis pursues the trend for double-decker stages, the clinical therapist’s office above, the sleazy, dimly lit bar below.

While the con-games themselves are nicely choreographed, they are also well telegraphed. And, by now, Bean’s boosterish urges have erased all thoughts of Mamet’s moral bleakness.

For all its inconsistencies, the production is diverting, packed with plot, character and incident.

The audience, like Margaret, is willingly drawn into the performance’s web of duplicity. There’s a sly thematic resonance here: theatre itself is a con, asking viewers to believe in fictions. This adaptation leans into that idea, sometimes too heavily, but never without flair.

The tricks may be familiar, but the ride is fun.

DOUBLE FEATURE at Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“Each performer reveals the layers of these complex characters with a skill that stretches beyond the mere words on the page”

Can you separate the artist from the man? Now there’s a question. One that has been around for a very long time, but becomes more pertinent as time progresses and attitudes advance. John Logan addresses this in in his cutting-edge and challenging new play “Double Feature”. Although Alfred Hitchcock is only part of the story, he is the one that pulls focus, morphing from idol to vindictive sexual predator in the space of ninety minutes. It is perhaps dangerous territory to tread, but thrilling to watch. So long as you are prepared to be discomfited.

It is 1964 and Hitchcock, at his zenith as the world’s most celebrated filmmaker, has invited his muse and leading lady, Tippi Hedren, to his cottage on the Universal lot to ‘rehearse’. Meanwhile, in 1967, the young film director, Michael Reeves, is attempting to cook for, and mollify, veteran actor Vincent Price in his Suffolk cottage. Two continents and three years apart the stories are intermeshed with echoes and parallels that overlap like twisted limbs in a fierce, four-hand wrestling match.

Jonathan Kent’s imaginative staging splices the action together seamlessly, beautifully capturing Logan’s dramatic device of running the two stories simultaneously. All four characters are onstage throughout; one couple retreating to the shadows like ghosts in limbo during the moments when the lights are focused on the other pair. Yet there is an invisible cord that pulls all four together which tightens each time we cut from one scene to the next.

Both relationships are at a period of crisis and the cast capture the requisite power struggle and dynamics. Ian McNeice is an affable, charismatic titan as Hitchcock. His initial, almost cuddly persona rapidly melting into sinister monstrosity while Joanna Vanderham swings in a completely opposite direction. Her obsequious Tippi Hedren, pushed to the very edge of humiliation fights back with a master stroke performance that will have every #MeToo advocate cheering from the rooftops. Jonathan Hyde, as the understandably cantankerous Vincent Price, toys with his ‘new-kid’, arthouse director, wielding his experience and superiority like a piece of string to an overwrought kitten. Rowan Polonski brings out the multifaceted Michael Reeves with consummate skill, eventually winning Price’s respect. Each performer reveals the layers of these complex characters with a skill that stretches beyond the mere words on the page. Polonski, in particular, bringing out the tragic irony of a man who would be dead less than a year later.

This might not be to everyone’s taste, and the insider knowledge often threatens to overshadow the general appeal of the play. And we sometimes feel that Logan is writing for himself almost as much as for his audience. It is, however, compulsive viewing. As the scenes overlap, so do the notions of life imitating art. The two storylines portray the sometimes hidden and dark process of creating art, like a ferocious tennis match in which the unseeded has as strong a backhand as the ace server. It does well to keep the play within a short, one act time frame, concentrating the drama instead of overstretching the concept. Never becoming too earnest there are plenty of moments of humour in this unashamed and unflinching glimpse behind the scenes. The real winner, in the end, is the audience.

HOUSE OF GAMES

Hampstead Theatre

★★★

“diverting, packed with plot, character and incident”

HOUSE OF GAMES

Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 12th May 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

HOUSE OF GAMES

HOUSE OF GAMES

HOUSE OF GAMES

DOUBLE FEATURE at Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“Each performer reveals the layers of these complex characters with a skill that stretches beyond the mere words on the page”

DOUBLE FEATURE at Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 19th February 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

DOUBLE FEATURE

DOUBLE FEATURE

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