HOT MESS
Southwark Playhouse Elephant
★★★★★
“continually manages to entertain and surprise”
How do you fit humanity’s 300,000-year existence on planet earth into an hour? Jack Godfrey and Ellie Coote somehow do just that in their new musical ‘Hot Mess’, transforming the messy relationship between people and the planet into a toxic romantic relationship between ‘Earth’ (Danielle Steers) and ‘Humanity’ (Tobias Turley). It shouldn’t work as well as it does.
Steers immediately sets the tone with her stellar vocals as her character laments her ongoing singledom, having not found a species of ‘apex predator’ to her liking since the sexy short-armed T-rexes of millions of years ago. This anthropomorphic iteration of our planet is no ‘Mother Earth’ or mythic ‘Gaia’ – she is a millennial in a satin green nightgown with an endless stream of geological puns up her sleeve. Earth dances confidently around her stylised living room, an effectively layered set by Shankho Chaudhuri, complete with blue floors, green furniture, and lots of plants. In bursts Humanity: a white guy in gold-rimmed glasses and a sheepskin jacket, of course. Turley matches Steers’ outstanding voice as they whirl through an impressive array of musical styles. Co-orchestrators Godfrey and Joe Beighton have done a particularly good job of capturing the epic scale of this relationship in their pleasing electronic compositions.
As Humanity, Turley also stands out for his portrayal of the self-centredness, short-sightedness, and greed that leads to the inevitable breakdown of their relationship.
Intelligent and ambitious, Humanity’s quick development from hunter-gatherer to farmer to self–appointed architect-of-the-world is only possible because he has no qualms about exploiting his girlfriend, his ‘only home’, for her many resources (cue silly drilling innuendos). His adulterous trip to the Moon and unwarranted introduction of planes and cars, cleverly incorporated into the soundscape (Paul Gatehouse & Charlie Smith), drive Earth further to the edge, resulting in literal stormy weather, cleverly represented in Ryan Joseph Stafford’s light(n)ing design.
Naturally, the audience can see where the relationship will go from a million miles away, but ‘Hot Mess’ continually manages to entertain and surprise regardless. It transforms the climate crisis into a narrative of romantic fall-out so familiar that it allows the viewer to easily grasp some of the underlying issues that have caused it, pointing to humans’ essential solipsism and carelessness. In the end, Earth realises it does not need Humanity and kicks him out of her home, after which he finds refuge with a much more toxic partner, Mars. Despite that bleak prospect, you’ll be walking out of this show with a smile on your face.
HOT MESS
Southwark Playhouse Elephant
Reviewed on 22nd October 2025
by Lola Stakenburg
Photography by Helen Murray
Previously reviewed at this venue:
LIFERS | ★★★ | October 2025
THE CHAOS THAT HAS BEEN AND WILL NO DOUBT RETURN | ★★★★★ | September 2025
THE ANIMATOR | ★★★ | August 2025
BRIXTON CALLING | ★★★★ | July 2025
THE WHITE CHIP | ★★★★ | July 2025
WHO IS CLAUDE CAHUN? | ★★ | June 2025
THIS IS MY FAMILY | ★★½ | May 2025
THE FROGS | ★★★ | May 2025
RADIANT BOY | ★★½ | May 2025
SUPERSONIC MAN | ★★★★ | April 2025
