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Kneehigh’s Ubu! A Singalong Satire

Shoreditch Town Hall

Reviewed – 6th December 2019

★★★★

“unabashedly uncool, in turn giving credence to its audience to be the same”

Besides overly confident children who’ve yet to be beaten down by the world, I’m going out on a limb and stating confidently that I don’t think anyone actually likes audience participation. The performers come stalking through the crowd, “Can I have a volunteer?” and everyone promptly stares intensely at their shoes or, armed with a child, pushes them to the front, sacrificing them in their stead.

Despite this, somehow Kneehigh’s Ubu manages to succeed in whipping the entire audience in to a giddy frenzy, belting out Bowie and Britney alike, eagerly volunteering for team games, cheering and booing with immense gusto.

The plot, originally written by Alfred Jarry, and turned upside down and inside out for this production by Carl Grose, is nearly irrelevant, just something to hang the evening’s entertainment on: The land of Lovelyville is lovely, ruled over peacefully by President Nick Dallas (Dom Coyote) and his teenage daughter Bobbie Dallas (Kyla Goodey), that is until one day Mr and Mrs Ubu (Katy Owen, Mike Shepherd) climb their way out of the sewers and start wreaking havoc.

Performances are consistently silly and melodramatic, and costumes follow suit: Mop heads serve as hair, spring coils as breasts and dunce hats as crowns (created under the supervision of Megan Rarity). There is zero effort to suspend any disbelief- in fact, there’s an active push in the other direction. At one point, on presenting a long stick, Mrs Ubu states, “This is more than a stick, this is a genuine African blow dart. Suspend your disbelief is you don’t believe me.”

The whole evening feels like complete chaos: aside from the constant breaks into song, one side of the audience is called upon repeatedly to act as a zoo; our host for the evening, Jeremy Wardle (Niall Ashdown) keeps interrupting scenes to give yellow cards for bad language; at some point a bear shows up… Multiple times throughout, I find myself admitting I have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but it doesn’t matter. And in fact, the nonsensicalness of the show is perhaps what allows everyone to let go of any manners or restraint and really lean in to the madness. The bar is also open throughout the evening, which no doubt aids in the audience’s loosening up.

The band (The Sweaty Beaurocrats) remains on stage throughout, as does a giant toilet, taking centre-stage, providing a handy entrance or a humiliating exit. An additional promenade stage (designed by Bill Mitchell) allows the standing audience to crowd around, like a benign mob, singing on cue whenever words appear on one of three giant screens. There is seating, but most of the audience is stood throughout, eager to join in the ruckus.

Regardless of whether you can carry a tune, or whether you even know the words, there is something incredibly freeing about belting your heart out in a big crowd, arms around strangers, caring not a hair that you’ve somehow been turned into an audience participant. Kneehigh’s Ubu, as co-directed by Carl Grose and Mike Shepherd, is unabashedly uncool, in turn giving credence to its audience to be the same. This is exactly what a Christmas show should be. Overwhelmingly silly and senseless, and one of the best nights out in London this December.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Steve Tanner

Kneehigh’s Ubu! A Singalong Satire

Shoreditch Town Hall until 21st December

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Madhouse re:exit | ★★★½ | March 2018

The Nature of Forgetting | ★★★★ | April 2018

We can Time Travel | ★★★ | April 2018

Suicide Notes … The Spoken Word of Christopher Brett Bailey | ★★★½ | May 2018

These Rooms | ★★★★★ | June 2018

Busking It | ★★★★ | October 2018

Shift | ★★★★ | May 2019

Gastronomic | ★★★★★ | September 2019

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★★★

“it needs to evolve from simply shining the light, into interrogating and addressing the motives behind doing so”

Bipolar Me, written by Ceri Ashe and co-directed with Liam Reilly, showcases main character Katie’s journey to discover and come to terms with her diagnosis of Type 2 Bipolar, symptomatic of cycles of severe depression and hypomania. There is plenty in Bipolar Me that those struggling with mental health issues, not even just Type 2 Bipolar, can relate to. The waiting times for appointments, for example, as even with a good doctor who takes Katie’s issues seriously it still takes a year to be seen by a specialist. And between the personal lens of Katie’s story and the specialist’s medically accurate – if somewhat creatively uninspired – explanations of Type 2 Bipolar, we get an in-depth breakdown of the condition.

Ashe’s performance is a standout. From a frantic interrogation of the audience in Katie’s hypomanic state to days in bed during depressive episodes, she takes them convincingly through the highs and lows of someone struggling with the condition. The set design strengthens this portrayal, as all the action is either based in or performed from Katie’s bedroom and shows the lonely, claustrophobic nature of mental health.

Unfortunately the play fails to explore the more complex questions it raises. The main dilemma for Katie, whether to go on the recommended drugs for her condition, is thoroughly debated. She wonders whether her Bipolar defines who she is, whether the hypomanic highs aid her creativity and success in songwriting. The opportunity to interrogate these ideas is lost, as the play ends the moment she makes her decision.

Other characters in the piece also feel flat and superficial compared to Katie herself. The core relationship in the piece, between Katie and her boyfriend Mark (Matthew Betteridge), ends with an expositional line from a secondary character. Although set up as one of the key plot points of the piece, the reasons for the break up are never spoken of in detail. Beyond Mark being from Essex and, for a while at least, in love with Katie, we know very little at all about him. Then there is Gabe (Andrew Armitage), Katie’s gay best friend, who serves up about all the stereotypes you’d expect with no character development whatsoever.

By placing a little-talked about issue centre stage, Bipolar Me is definitely a step in the right direction when it comes to mental health issues being raised in theatre, but it falls short of the potential it sets up for itself. Self described as a play that “shines a light on a still much stigmatised subject,” it needs to evolve from simply shining the light, into interrogating and addressing the motives behind doing so.

Reviewed by Katy Owen

Photography by Hannah Sorrell