★★★★

“the ensemble takes the audience through violence, turmoil and tenderness”

We open to a startling flash of light burnishing a grimy public lavatory as a small but mighty voice coming from a cubicle proclaims “I don’t need any help” to his exasperated father. Boys on the Verge of Tears is an exploration of masculinity from learning to pee in the toilet to emptying a colostomy bag; always defiantly rejecting help from others.

This striking debut by Sam Grabiner, winner of the Verity Bargate Award, confronts its subject through a series of sketches featuring a plethora of characters representing brands of man. Each scene is self-contained with episodes rolling into each other continuously. The costumes aid this tremendously (I want that rotary phone handbag desperately!) with some impressive quick-changes occurring as the merry-go-round of manhood turns (Ashley Martin-Davis). The bathroom deteriorates over the course of the show, picking up bruises and graffiti whilst containing some well executed surprises (Ashley Martin-Davis).

The cast depict giggling children, disturbing teenagers and glamourous drag queens with heart and variation. Highlights include the troubled but eerily realistic Jack (Matthew Beard), bitchy queen Maureen (David Carlyle) who showed extraordinary range throughout, frightened and vulnerable Jo (Calvin Demba) whose performance gave power to the play’s ideas, world weary Santa Claus (Tom Espiner) and mischievous but adorable Zaid (Maanuv Thiara). Directed by James Macdonald, the ensemble takes the audience through violence, turmoil and tenderness between men, with clear commentary on needing more of the latter. There are moments when characters evoke other iterations; “it was absurd” being said by two men with sexist attitudes towards women, but manifesting it differently. The group scenes feel very naturalistic and accurate, instigating the occasional shudder of teenage memories. The ensemble have brilliant chemistry and comradery.

The play has no main character and a relatively loose structure. Characters catch brief glimpses of the future as scenes merge into one another. Whilst allowing for more abstract explorations of masculinity it also prevented further depth being explored. We meet these men for mere moments, barely scratching their surface, evoking loneliness and shallowness. Chekov’s gun is cocked, but never fired in the form of a knife that is introduced and not really used, perhaps to subvert expectations, but also feels disjointed. On occasion, there were too many interruptions of minor characters which broke moments of tension, and some scenes lacked resolution, ending abruptly. The jump between the chaos of the night life sequence to palliative care felt reductive and cliché of a lifetime; surely there are more midlife experiences to draw on? Is masculinity really about fighting and clubbing then fatherhood and death? Perhaps I reveal my own naiveté to this suggestion…maybe it is? Boys on the Verge of Tears asks why men refuse help from each other and how men’s bodies can be destructive and vulnerable in all their beauty and strength.

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL at Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“the dialogue is whip smart – intelligently written and delivered in a natural manner that draws plenty of unexpected laughs”

Hampstead Theatre’s ambitious revival of Tom Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll follows the intersecting lives of Jan and Max, a Czech PhD student at Cambridge and his Marxist professor. Starting in 1968 with the Prague Spring and closing just after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, it covers vast ground, temporally and thematically, but primarily examines the socio-political challenges of Czechoslovakia as a satellite state of the Soviet Union through Jan and Max’s diverging perspectives. It’s pretty cerebral, not least because the academic discussions on Marxism are often only given respite by academic discussions on Sappho, but there is balance to be had with emotive love stories interwoven throughout.

There’s a lot to unpack, whether Czech independence is familiar to you or not. The script is densely filled with characters, storylines and dialogue covered at such a cantering pace it can be difficult to keep up. Jumps forward in time require heavy exposition to make sense of when and where we are. But the dialogue is whip smart – intelligently written and delivered in a natural manner that draws plenty of unexpected laughs.

Stoppard describes this play as a love story primarily between Jan and Rock and Roll music. Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Jan is sweetly enamoured by the Velvet Underground and Nico, Pink Floyd, and the Rolling Stones – taking just a suitcase of records with him back from Cambridge to Prague in ‘68. Director Nina Raine brings this to life in the staging, blasting the familiar tunes as the scenes change and using Brenock O’Connor as an ethereal Syd Barrett to hop across the stage like the spirit of rock and roll.

“a timely revival from one of British theatre’s greatest playwrights”

It’s Jan’s singular fixation with Czech rockers Plastic People of the Universe that drive him from youthful idealism towards dissidence for the ruling regime. Almost every scene at times is peppered with ‘plastic people’. His eventual criticism of the communist regime puts him at odds with the fearsome Max. Nathaniel Parker’s Max feels intensely unlikable – an old man stuck in his ways, unbudgeable in his convictions. Czech independence from soviet influence feels viscerally modern at the current moment with Ukraine at war for the right to self determination. Max’s dogmatic insistence in the preeminence of communism has added resonance now.

These intellectual battles are expertly balanced against emotional ones. Nancy Carroll as Eleanor, gives an indelibly powerful performance as Max’s equally accomplished wife whose specialism in sapphic poetry is at odds with the rationalism of her partner. When she talks of Sappho writing of an un-mechanical man you can’t help but think she is imagining the very opposite of her husband. It’s clever therefore that in Act II Carroll plays Esme, Eleanor and Max’s daughter, who harbours a lifelong attraction to the more emotional Jan.

Set in traverse, it is never noticeable that the cast are playing to the audience on both sides. The large stage is fulsomely decked out by Anna Reid as the grand interior of a Cambridge college suitable for a professor of rank just as well as a poky Prague flat.

Rock ’n’ Roll is a timely revival from one of British theatre’s greatest playwrights. Whether you’re a Syd Barrett super fan or Marxist intellectual there will be plenty to mull over long after the final tableau.

BOYS ON THE VERGE OF TEARS at the Soho Theatre

★★★★

“the ensemble takes the audience through violence, turmoil and tenderness”

BOYS ON THE VERGE OF TEARS at the Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 18th April 2024

by Jessica Potts

Photography by Marc Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue:

BOYS ON THE VERGE OF TEARS

BOYS ON THE VERGE OF TEARS

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL at Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“the dialogue is whip smart – intelligently written and delivered in a natural manner that draws plenty of unexpected laughs”

“a timely revival from one of British theatre’s greatest playwrights”

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL at Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 12th December 2023

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Rock ‘n’ Roll

Rock ‘n’ Roll