9 – 11 January

The Ustinov has a track record of bringing us insights into the disturbed mind and this play by Jamie Beamish and Richard Kieswick (who performs as Dave),  is a darkly comic look inside the mind of a schizophrenic wannabe musical theatre actor. In a brief reference to his upbringing his father is dismissed as someone undeserving of his respect. Music, and in particular musical theatre, are his escape from a stultifying home life.

In Dave’s mind he has an abundance of talent and is well regarded by, and even a creative influence on Andrew Lloyd Webber. Not so Tim Rice, who he believes to be a negative influence on his nascent career. Act one of what is barely a two act play concerns Dave’s thwarted attempts to act alongside the White Cat in Cats who, in his narrative, is played by an ‘Essex girl’ of few words and for whom he forms an unhealthy obsession, which soon manifests as stalking.

Regularly over dramatic and with a readiness to express a point with a camp theatrical gesture, we are lured into thinking Dave’s lovable self-belief is nothing but harmless, if slightly pathetic, self-delusion. Mr Kieswick gives a likeable portrait of a musical theatre fan deluded enough to convince himself he has what it takes. The monologue bubbles along with wit and insight, uncomfortably comic and yet a pointer to a slippery slope on which a disturbed mind has little control. Unsuccessful at auditions and inexplicably – to his mind – barred from theatre stage doors on opening nights, his unrequited love of the White Cat takes a dark twist. Finding his way into her home he rummages through her dirty washing and spies on her relationship with one of the male dancers.

However it isn’t until the second half of the play that something resembling a plot emerges as the piece takes on an apparently inevitable trajectory. Malign thoughts seem to him to be rational as inexplicable disappointment dogs his inchoate career. Jokes in poor taste, raw and unmediated by artistic gloss reveal a dark mind which accompanies the often witty frivolity of a natural performer. In this vein the performers in The Sound of Music (we are left to guess which version) are bitchily referred to as “cheap slags”.

This is a cleverly performed piece of misdirection which raises a grim smile at the end of some very funny monologue.

★★★★☆  Graham Wyles, 10 January 2025