★★★

“The Soho Theatre is a place to experiment. Cuckoo tried, it didn’t fail but it didn’t completely succeed”

The Soho Theatre is a hotbed for new comedy and drama. It is a testing ground for the weird and wonderful to see if it sinks or swims in the ocean of live entertainment. Currently on offer in the upstairs space is ‘Cuckoo’. Set in a small Irish village, we follow its adolescent inhabitants, as some struggle through the opportunity of leaving home, while others struggle through not being able to leave at all. Cuckoo is a story of gender, small town thinking, friendship and fried chicken.

The story written by Lisa Carroll follows the mute gender non-conforming Pingu (Elise Heaven), the loud mouth but often humorous Iona (Caitriona Ennis) and the gang of Pockets (Colin Campbell), Trix (Peter Newington) and Toller (Sade Malone).

Cuckoo itself is interesting exploring something that most people have dealt with, leaving home and is it worth it? It’s structured well and packs a lot of humour, especially into tiny Iona’s character. Despite this, the story seems to drag. The running time of an hour and fifty minutes could be cut by at least half an hour to tighten everything up. By the end, it felt sloppy and almost irrelevant because of this overly long runtime.

What is evident though, is that the performances are solid and that can partially be attributed to Debbie Hannan’s adept direction. However, Caitriona Ennis as Iona is the stand out performer. Her comedic timing is really what saves the show and makes the full running time a little easier to cope with.

The Soho Theatre is a place to experiment. Cuckoo tried, it didn’t fail but it didn’t completely succeed. This show needs a bit of work, but with changes, it could hugely entertaining.

Reviewed by Shaun Dicks

Photography by David Gill

Pickle Jar

Soho Theatre

Reviewed – 26th October 2018

★★★★★

“the characters, despite being created only through shifts in Rice’s voice and posture, are three-dimensional and complex”

In what presents as a comedy monologue, but quickly evolves into a troubling modern tale, Maddie Rice writes and performs the part of Miss, a well-meaning and slightly prudish teacher. At school, Miss fills the traditional role of a stable, sexless mentor to her precocious charges while in her private life she is between relationships and desperately at sea amid the dangers of urban dating. The comic potential of two worlds in conflict is successfully mined for the first half, as Rice skilfully conjures a recognisable collection of characters.

Then, just as we wonder where all this is going, a tragic event at school triggers Miss to begin to unravel. Fighting off the intrusive concern of the school’s councillor, Laura, with her wheedling voice and mindfulness techniques, Miss hits the Pina Coladas and revisits the nightclub where she had experienced an assault at the hands of a colleague, about which she had been silent.

Several details elevate the showcase above the usual wry look at modern life. The direction by Katie Pesskin is crisp, with smart use of lighting (Mark Dymock) and sound (Dominic Kennedy). The script is genuinely funny and the characters, despite being created only through shifts in Rice’s voice and posture, are three-dimensional and complex, from handsome food-tech teacher Eric and jolly but morally bereft flatmate Mairead, to charming Raj at the corner shop and an array of street-wise pupils.

Although this is her writing debut, Rice is an accomplished performer having toured in the stage version of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s ‘Fleabag’ and played various parts in Comedy Central’s ‘Every Blank Ever’. Her role in ‘Fleabag’ provides a jumping off point for the character of Miss, but here the bawdy Saturday Night style is mellowed by an emotional authenticity and pin sharp observation. For example, the simple set (Ben Target and Tom Hartshorne) features two mounds and a sapling to represent the place in a school playing field where the girls have their heart-to-hearts. In the script, too, character is never sacrificed for easy laughs. When Miss admits that it’s high time she bought toilet rolls, kitchen rolls and sausage rolls for the flat, we realise it’s because Mairead has been excusing her these duties, exposing both the flatmate’s softer side and the extent of Miss’s fragility.

All this gives a powerful sense of reality to the show’s narrative and themes, but as serious as these are, the comedy never goes cold. Brilliant writing and performance are vital to pull of this balancing act and this one woman show gives us both barrels.

Soho Theatre

Reviewed – 16th November 2018

★★★

“The Soho Theatre is a place to experiment. Cuckoo tried, it didn’t fail but it didn’t completely succeed”

The story written by Lisa Carroll follows the mute gender non-conforming Pingu (Elise Heaven), the loud mouth but often humorous Iona (Caitriona Ennis) and the gang of Pockets (Colin Campbell), Trix (Peter Newington) and Toller (Sade Malone).

The Soho Theatre is a place to experiment. Cuckoo tried, it didn’t fail but it didn’t completely succeed. This show needs a bit of work, but with changes, it could hugely entertaining.

Reviewed by Shaun Dicks

Photography by David Gill

Cuckoo

Soho Theatre until 8th December

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Pickle Jar

Soho Theatre

Reviewed – 26th October 2018

★★★★★

“the characters, despite being created only through shifts in Rice’s voice and posture, are three-dimensional and complex”

All this gives a powerful sense of reality to the show’s narrative and themes, but as serious as these are, the comedy never goes cold. Brilliant writing and performance are vital to pull of this balancing act and this one woman show gives us both barrels.

Reviewed by Dominic Gettins

Photography by Ali Wright

Pickle Jar

Soho Theatre until 10th November

Previously reviewed at this theatre: