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

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★★★★

“Good writing and good theatre allow issues to be explored without spoon-feeding ideas”

In the year ending March 2019, 5,738 referrals were made to the UK’s anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent. The most common source of referrals was Education and one in ten were deemed worthy of further action through the de-radicalisation programme known as Channel. Finborough Theatre’s writer on attachment, Joe Marsh explores bias, community and the education system in Althea Theatre’s production of The Glass Will Shatter at the Omnibus Theatre, Clapham.

Told through a series of flashbacks, the play follows Rebecca (Josephine Arden), a middle-class, white, neurotic and former teacher as she attempts to overcome her recurring nightmares by addressing their source: a confrontation she had had with former pupil Amina (Naima Swaleh)- a second-generation Somali and aspiring rapper. Between the two sits the steadying presence of Jamilah (Alma Eno), now school principal, who has agreed to meet with Rebecca for a catch-up.

Although it gets off to a rocky start; seemingly due to an inherent problem with the setup – a series of stilted conversations in a coffee shop between the emotionally closed Rebecca and Jamilah, who haven’t met for years – “Are you sure you don’t want a coffee?”. Marsh has nonetheless written a beautiful and witty play that highlights the tragic combination of systematised programmes such as Prevent and the inherent bias and insecurities of the individuals encouraged to enact them.

Once properly underway, Director Lilac Yosiphon builds the pace cycling through the series of flashbacks with swift changes to the moveable set punctuated by short movement sequences. All of which was supplemented by Will Monks’ lighting design which employed striking laser projections through heavy stage smoke. The large glass window (that one feels must shatter, Chekovesque) at times captured and contained all of that smoke in a way reminiscent of the design for Debbie Tucker Green’s Ear for Eye.

Naima Swaleh provides an especially watchable performance as Amina; playing the confident street-kid foil to Rebecca’s neuroticism. Jamilah completed the triumvirate as the wise head between the two and showing that emotional intelligence counts for much in education, as it does in life. All of which builds to a satisfying and emotional denouement when Rebecca finally gets face to face with her (now long-since graduated) tormentor.

Good writing and good theatre allow issues to be explored without spoon-feeding ideas. I left the theatre with a very clear set of conclusions (both tragic and self-confronting) to the problems raised. However, such is the complexity and at times a nebulous subject, it’s entirely possible for another viewer to leave holding a different set of sympathies. That, above all, is much to the production’s credit.

Reviewed by Euan Vincent

Photography by Sam Elwin

CAPTAIN AMAZING at Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★★

“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:

CAPTAIN AMAZING

CAPTAIN AMAZING

Omnibus Theatre

Reviewed – 23rd January 2020

★★★★

“Good writing and good theatre allow issues to be explored without spoon-feeding ideas”

Reviewed by Euan Vincent

Photography by Sam Elwin

The Glass Will Shatter

Omnibus Theatre until 8th February

Previously reviewed at this venue: