MISTERO BUFFO

Pleasance Theatre

★★★★

“full of turns and surprises”

Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s Mistero Buffo is a synthesis of satirical stories that transport you to a biblical time of miracles, resurrections and brutality. A highly controversial piece of theatre that was first adapted by Rhum + Clay in 2018 and returns to London to give voice to those who have been repressed, wronged and slaughtered in the name of religion, money and justice. This is an incredible one-man show that will blow your mind.

The show incorporates stories like The Birth of the Jongleur, The Slaughter of the Innocents, The Marriage at Canaan and The Resurrection of Lazarus. Interesting choices that balance between monologue-specific storytelling and more character heavy one, so the audience’s engagement never waivers. The narrator jumps in and out of these stories that have different backdrops, time periods and character, but all taking place during Jesus Christ’s life and all sharing the same element of hilarious blasphemy. Jesus has an American accent, Mary gets drunk and parties, angels threaten to use violence. And they reveal how truth has many faces, all of which can and will be manipulated.

Julian Spooner, who is the only cast member and also one of the creators of this adaptation, is a machine that never stops delivering. His attention to detail, the variety of the characters he brings to life, his impeccable, clowning-inspired physicality are only some aspects that make his performance remarkable. But best of all, the energy he brings onstage from the second he steps in the auditorium. He interacts effortlessly with the audience, makes you feel like he’s performing just for you, like he lets you in a world of endless possibilities. There’s enjoyment in his craft and this evident joy spreads like an invisible mist around the audience members.

Director Nicholas Pitt takes on a particularly challenging feat, managing to create a bold, yet playful retelling of Mistero Buffo. The collaboration between Pitt and Spooner is nothing short of a success. The pacing is also extraordinary, full of turns and surprises, with the right amount of moments that slow down and let you digest what you’ve seen before being taken back into the whirlwind of Spooner’s performance.

The stage remains bare, without any set, which is not an issue mainly because of the nature of Spooner’s constant movement. Lighting designer Geoff Hense, along with music and sound designer Jon Ouin, combine their strengths to provide some help in terms of scene changes, tone setting and transitions from one story to the next, with some impressively accurate, comedy-enhancing cues. Though, to be honest, Spooner’s acting is so to the point that the audience would be able to tell between all those changes anyway.

Though the comedy of the stories is very strong, the jokes landing, the characters hilarious and the modern touches effective, there is also an ominous side in Fo’s writing that is not quite present in this production. The Italian playwright was known for going against the established and showing his audience that the truth is more than what we’re being fed by those who are in power. These stories are a punch in the face of authority. This production leans a lot on the satire and humour, but it doesn’t use it for any relevant commentary of what’s happening in our day and time. The rebellious layer of what Fo really stood for remains somewhat buried.

For those who don’t normally appreciate one person shows, Mistero Buffo will make you reconsider.

MISTERO BUFFO

Pleasance Theatre

Reviewed on 26th September 2025

by Stephanie Christodoulidou

Photography by Luke Forsythe

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE LAST INCEL | ★★★ | May 2025

THE SIMPLE LIFE & DEATH | ★★★★★ | November 2024

16 POSTCARDS | ★★★ | October 2024

GIRLS REALLY LISTEN TO ME | ★★★★ | May 2024

GISELLE: REMIX | ★★★★★ | April 2024

GWYNETH GOES SKIING | ★★★ | February 2024

MISTERO BUFFO

★★½

“Rhum + Clay have presented us with a rumination rather than a finished thought”

On first leaving the auditorium, I really have no idea what I just watched. And the journey home doesn’t lend much clarity to be honest. But for the sake of explaining it to you: In the first half, Spooner and Wells play-act a tyrannical take-over, and in the second, they themselves suffer under a tyrant. But this is a major over-clarification; the story itself feels a lot more bewildering.

In the first half, co-creators, directors and performers Julian Spooner and Matt Wells perform a play within the play which Wells’ character has written, in which he plays a good politician, i.e a boring one who talks about policy and does what he says he’ll do. But Spooner is dissatisfied, feeling the show should be more ‘fun’, so he forcibly takes over as an idiot tyrant, getting more and more tyrannical.

It feels very chaotic in a ‘The Play that Goes Wrong/One Man Two Guvnors’ kind of vibe, and I’m initially concerned that this slapstick-style broad comedy will last the whole 75 minutes. But that concern is overtaken by fear, as Spooner becomes more and more aggressive about audience participation, peaking as he demands everyone repeats after him, “This is a fun show” and so on. He then gets stroppy that not everyone is joining in, and demands that anyone sitting next to someone not joining in puts their hand up. In this way it’s very affecting: I’m suddenly genuinely fearful of my neighbour, and toy with joining in just so I’m not dragged to the front and shamed.

In the second half, the two appear in their underwear, and an overhead voice orders them to perform mime acts in full clown costume while having no communication between each other. The sudden and utter change in tone is initially very affecting: the genuinely beautifully choreographed mime acts combine with Khaled Kurbeh’s ominous soundtrack to create a very compelling and menacing mystery. Who is making the orders? What are they threatening if they’re disobeyed? But much like the excessive chaos in the first act, excessive mystery in the second grows tiring.

As one has come to expect from a Rhum + Clay production, the performances are high energy, high intensity and compelling in themselves. Kurbeh’s accompanying music, a synth-heavy soundscape with use of a small drum kit, is bizarre but fitting. And Blythe Brett’s design is perfectly restrained: Besides a small misbehaving LED sign and a trolly full of props, the only major stage design is a semi-shear curtain which descends after the first act and, with the help of a light shining through, shows a glimpse of the performers’ backstage relationship as well as the sudden changing of pace and atmosphere. It then becomes opaque when the light is shut off. It’s a very simple idea but brilliant. The Pierrot clown costumes in the second half are also a very clever decision: whilst being forced to dress as clowns should seem ridiculous if sinister, Pierrot’s white face paint and loose white clothes lend it an immediate pathos; Spooner and Wells seem tragically trapped.

The problem is not in the execution of the idea, but in the idea itself: it needs a plot. Rhum + Clay have presented us with a rumination rather than a finished thought.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Cesare De Giglio

Tag Archives: Rhum and Clay

MISTERO BUFFO

★★★★

Pleasance Theatre

MISTERO BUFFO

Pleasance Theatre

★★★★

“full of turns and surprises”