Tag Archives: Mark Weinman

CAPTAIN AMAZING

★★★★★

Southwark Playhouse Borough

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CAPTAIN AMAZING at Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★★

“a timeless and emotive piece of theatre, perfectly silly and sensitive”

This is a 10 year anniversary revival of a beautiful piece that has lost none of its composure. Captain Amazing is a tour de force of storytelling, with Mark Weinman nimbly navigating over 10 different characters across the piece. His range is extraordinary, and the show would be worth seeing just for this performance.

Each character is remarkably well executed with Weinman using his full physicality, and the bright red cape he dons throughout, to embody everyone from a downtrodden DIY sales assistant (also called Mark), to his little girl Emily, to an estate agent for superheroes. This means that though there are plenty of laugh out loud physical comedy skits, the emotional weight of the final third lands exactly where it needs to.

The plot follows a slightly hapless man through a relationship, accidental parenthood, and the early years of developing a relationship with his daughter. Interspersed between this story are vignettes featuring Captain Amazing, a superhero who can fly and shoot lasers from his eyes. These are initially the source of much of the comedy in the piece; the tumble drier ruining a superhero costume was a highlight. But the fooling around also gives way to some bigger questions, even from the dastardly Evil Man who asks how on earth he is meant to be good if everyone expects him to be evil.

 

 

Alistair McDowall’s accomplished script then leads the audience through the worst loss imaginable. This is sensitively and simply done, focussing on Mark and Emily’s connection throughout a huge challenge.

Mark’s navigation through grief is then contrasted with superhero scenes of Captain Amazing struggling to find time to talk with other superhero mates. Both Mark and Captain Amazing start to unravel in a spiral of pain through the sense of isolation and disconnection. However, the piece ends with a chink of hope, with the audience left on an uplifting note without being mawkish.

Designer Georgia de Grey has done an incredible job with the deceptively simple set. A backdrop provides the exaggerated perspective of a room, and is covered in what looks like plain white papier mache. It becomes a canvass for childish comic book illustrations which punctuate Weinman’s performance, leaving an indelible record of his memory on stage. Lighting (carefully used by Will Monks) then is dialled up to increase and decrease the contrast during the superhero scenes, but never entirely fades away, especially as the lines get blurred between fantasy and reality in the denouement.

With only one man and one red chair on stage, Director Clive Judd creates hugely engaging worlds in both reality and the fantasy realm, which for the fantastical subject matter are also instantly recognisable. For a piece that ultimately navigates bereavement, Captain Amazing also revels in joy and escapism. I can see why it already has a ten year history. This is a timeless and emotive piece of theatre, perfectly silly and sensitive.


CAPTAIN AMAZING at Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 2nd May 2024

by Rosie Thomas

Photography by Ali Wright

 


 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

WHY I STUCK A FLARE UP MY ARSE FOR ENGLAND | ★★★★★ | April 2024
SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE VALLEY OF FEAR | ★★½ | March 2024
POLICE COPS: THE MUSICAL | ★★★★ | March 2024
CABLE STREET – A NEW MUSICAL | ★★★ | February 2024
BEFORE AFTER | ★★★ | February 2024
AFTERGLOW | ★★★★ | January 2024
UNFORTUNATE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF URSULA THE SEA WITCH A MUSICAL PARODY | ★★★★ | December 2023
GARRY STARR PERFORMS EVERYTHING | ★★★½ | December 2023
LIZZIE | ★★★ | November 2023
MANIC STREET CREATURE | ★★★★ | October 2023
THE CHANGELING | ★★★½ | October 2023

CAPTAIN AMAZING

CAPTAIN AMAZING

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Plastic – 5 Stars

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Plastic

Plastic

Old Red Lion Theatre

Reviewed – 6th April 2018

★★★★★

“like a heartbeat that lived throughout and breathed life into the entire performance”

 

Plastic opens with an energetic promise of what today could be: “a Reebok classic of a day”, and then the audience are propelled into a nostalgic yet familiar sense of the promise and possibility of what it means to be young. You could be a legend. Or you could be a loser. What you once were and what you will be. But in which order?

First we meet Kev (Mark Weinman) who animatedly chronicles in delicious detail the legacy he left at school as “a football legend”. The type of lad boys wanted to be mates with and all the girls fancied. Weinman presents a character who is instantly likeable, and as the story progresses the audience get an increasing sense that life may not have delivered on all its promises set up in the school playground. Until he meets Lisa (skilfully played by Madison Clare), a gutsy sixteen year old schoolgirl who seems to represent all Kev had and still wants to be. Weinman and Clare perfectly encapsulate the all encompassing nervy experience of carefully navigating your first relationship, and how it can be public property for whispering gossip and ridicule in the school halls.

Alongside this evolving relationship between Kev and Lisa, there is another between two loyal school friends Jack (Louis Greatorex) and Ben (Thomas Coombes). Jack and Ben are in the same year as Lisa but bumped down a few pegs lower on the school’s hierarchy. Their friendship is one of both survival and of genuine admiration for each other. They help each other dodge the bullies and cling onto their childhood friendship with Lisa as their bridge between them and their more popular peers.

Ben is being bullied and every day is a balancing act of avoiding attacks and trying to show that they aren’t getting to him. Thomas Coombes delivers a speech detailing the painful goings on during a science lesson that has every audience member holding their breath in solidarity.

The cast give a real lesson in what it means to perform as an ensemble, with every transition between moments being seamless. The direction from Josh Roche was clear; he carefully drove the story at quite a pace, whilst simultaneously giving the more tender moments the breathing space they required, which meant that in turn that audience were absolutely present and engaged throughout.

The play itself, written by Kenneth Emson, was like nothing I had ever seen before. The text was poem-like with rhyming couplets in parts and was hugely evocative and visual;  It had its own rhythm, like a heartbeat that lived throughout and breathed life into the entire performance.

The relationships forged onstage were absolutely believable, provoking raucous laughter from the audience in parts and in other more tender and grisly moments the silence was loaded. There wasn’t a moment that didn’t belong to the characters onstage. The emotional truth in all characters was both staggering and mesmerising, with a particular nod to Madison Clare whose performance as Lisa left the audience reeling in wonder.

 

Reviewed for thespyinthestalls.com

Photography by Mathew Foster

 


Plastic

Old Red Lion Theatre until 21st April

 

 

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