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Mickey Jo
Can we sleep cooler?
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Mickey Jo
I think what really astounds me is that you can go and see a piece of theatre which scarcely mirrors your own life experience, but nonetheless you can feel so connected to it and affected by it. I would say that all of these plays gave me some version of that experience to varying levels of success. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this roundup review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey, Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre, which is why I see so very much of it. And over the last two weeks I have seen a whole bunch of plays which I haven't yet had the chance to review for you here online. For the most part, I share the reviews of shows that I've seen here on YouTube or podcast platforms. I also occasionally share shorter reviews on apps like Instagram and TikTok, as well as broader thoughts about my week of theatre going in a free weekly substack newsletter that you can sign up for in the description of this video. But today what I'm going to do is share with you my extended thoughts thoughts about this quartet of plays that I saw over the past couple of weeks in London. They are in the order in which I saw them. Shadowlands by William Nicholson at the Old Witch Theatre in the West End Deep Azure by Chadwick Boseman at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe Guess How Much I Love youe by Luke Norris at the Royal Court Theatre as part of their 70th anniversary season and a new revival of Terence Ratigan's man and Boy at the Dorfman Theatre at the National. Four different plays, four different theatres, many different thoughts about each of them. I'm going to let you know exactly what I thought about the writing, the direction, the performances, but if you have had the opportunity to see any of these, please let me know what you thought about them in the comments as well. In the meantime, buckle your theatrical seatbelts. As we are about to embark on a four review marathon, let's talk about some plays. So, because I saw it first, we're going to begin with Shadowlands. Don't sing the song, don't sing the song. You have no idea how hard that's been. This production has transferred to the Old Witch Theatre in the West End after an initial run at Chichester Festival Theatre. It stars Hugh Bonneville as the writer C.S. lewis and Maggie Siff alongside him as Joy Davidman, the woman with whom he fell in love later in life. And that is very much the main focus of this play written by William Nicholson. We encounter C S Lewis later in his life as an Oxford professor, already a celebrated author and a confirmed bachelor. This is not his entire biography. We are very much focused on one chapter. The play originally premiered in the late 1980s, a stage adaptation of the television film of the same name, also written by Nicholson and Shadowlands of the title. Because I was very intrigued by this, as well as perhaps sort of nodding to the fantasy realms that C.S. lewis created with his beloved acclaimed book series the Chronicles of Narnia, including the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe speaks to an interpretation of Christian theology which he explains over a series of lectures which frame the piece. He talks about his interpretation of morality and these big questions of the existence of God and how an omnibenevolent deity could stand see so much suffering in the world, this resting on the notion that the promised land and heavenly afterlife which is to come offers a far better existence than the one that mankind is currently experiencing during their mortality that they are in currently the Shadowlands. But there is another version of this as well, because as touching as it is to watch this later in life love story between C.S. lewis and the American woman who comes to visit him after the two have written to each other. Her name is Joy Davidman. Traveling from the United States with her young son. We quite quickly, through some less than subtle theatrical foreshadowing, learn that Joy is not well. And after a dramatic collapse at the end of the first act, the second commences with her being treated for a particularly advanced and aggressive cancer. Thus we find a new interpretation of Shadowlands. While he was content enough in his solitary existence before, once he has known this extraordinary love that Joy and her son unexpectedly brought into his life, the prospect of a world without her suddenly becomes just the Shadowlands, a world robbed of color and meaning. And this play, through the mouth of C.S. lewis, explores those big ideas and those big questions really, really well. And it would, you know, simply just be touching if it weren't for this simultaneous idea of a religious man losing his faith, at least in an omni benevolent deity. His ability to believe that God truly loves him and those around him if he allows such cruelties to be endured. That being said, I don't know that it necessarily has the scope for a 2 structure. I did enjoy the second act more once we'd really arrived at the meat of the thing, because I think one way or another, the courtship and meeting between the two of them is always going to feel sort of unrealistically fast paced. And we might have been better off simply leaning into that, rather than these establishing scenes with his obnoxious Oxford friends, whose abject, if not inaccurate, misogyny is never really challenged as thoroughly as it ought to be and isn't quite as witty as you might think. There's a sense of a production like this feeling somewhat dated. At the same time, you would imagine that it would play very well to perhaps an older demographic. And it still has a very affecting story to convey, especially by the time that these two really take stock of what little time they have left together and really learn an important lesson about treasuring those moments and the connection that they both waited a lifetime in order to find. It's also played beautifully by Maggie and Hugh. He is very much at the wheel of a car. He absolutely knows how to drive. With a role like this, initially sort of emotionally indifferent and a little gruff and kind of melting towards the idea of someone else newly arriving into his life and challenging his world view, it, on occasion, especially in scenes shared by his brother, played by Geoff Rawl, begins to feel a little bit like a British version of Frasier. Maggie is quite radiant in this as well, and a Very welcome arrival, especially because in her absence, the play is sort of as entertaining as eavesdropping in a public school staff room. Some of my favorite moments in the writing of this relationship are these moments of a sort of slight cultural clash that they encounter with her as a more emotionally overt American and him as a very repressed Brit. And it's as a result of little details like that that this feels like a perfectly charming Sunday afternoon piece of theatre. It is ultimately quite moving and thoughtfully staged by director Rachel Cavanagh on this sort of adaptable library kind of a set by Peter McIntosh. There are times at which the experiences that they are encountering or those that they from earlier in their lives are compared to moments within the Narnia stories. And when those characters in that world and that fantasy realm is sort of invoked. And I think an even more theatrical realization of this story could visually invoke some of those moments a little bit more if we saw more glimpses into that world. I mean, there's a lamppost on stage, for crying out loud. But they don't necessarily nod to it as often or as loudly as perhaps they could. And you may think just because it's a story about C.S. lewis, it doesn't mean that we need to make it all about Narnia. But you also come to realize that there is the expectation that audience members will know who that is and understand the significance of his name. And if you go to this play without any prior knowledge of CS Lewis and I couldn't tell you that I knew before this a great many details about his life, then you may struggle in certain moments of exposition. This is, I think, a perfectly fine piece of theatre. What may heighten your experience is the extent to which you relate to the conversations that it has about grief, which, I should warn you, is sort of a recurring theme throughout the rest of the plays that we're going to discuss. Discuss very much so in the next one, which was deep, as
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Mickey Jo
Can we sleep cooler?
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Mickey Jo
Now I have to confess I was not aware of the existence of this play until I was invited to see it at the San Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe. I'll explain a little bit more about that space in just a moment, but first I need to you about the history of Deep Azure, because this was written by the late actor Chadwick Boseman in the early 2000s. It was first staged, I believe, in Chicago. This was the work's UK premiere and you may be wondering why Shakespeare's Globe is the venue where it was staged. And the answer lies in the form of the play, because the entire thing has been written in this beautiful lyrical verse, very much nodding to writers like Shakespeare. But I also think it stakes in the establishing of its characters and the way in which it is framed by a chorus and the culmination of its plot. Also feel sort of Shakespearean tragedy adjacent. There are moments that feel like Hamlet. There are moments that feel like Ghost, as in the Demi Moore Patrick Swayze movie, not as in Hamlet's father. But the story being and the work itself, aside from the sort of inherent beauty of the way that it sounds, is bold and very forward thinking. I think it was deeply ahead of its time. It reminded me a little, obviously Chadwick Boseman lived for a great many years after this was first written, even though I'm now encountering it after his death. But it does feel to me a little raw and rough around the edges in the same way that Rent does from Jonathan Larson. And this is somewhere on the scale of musical peace as well, because there are moments of song. It sort of begins to poke at the idea of hip hop opera, which would subsequently emerge in passing, strange even Hamilton and In the Heights. So like I said, very much ahead of its time and also exploring timeless themes, talking about grief, talking about the collapse of identity, as well as a devastatingly still timely conversation about police corruption and brutality and its impact on the African American community. Now the title of this play refers to perhaps its two principal characters, Deep and Azure. Deep is a philosophical young man who prior to the beginning of the play, has been shot and killed by a police officer in a miscarriage of justice. He is played by Jaden. Elijah Azure is the grieving girlfriend who survives him. She is played by Selena Jones. And her story is not simply one about grief and trying to grapple with discoveries about his death and trying desperately to find answers and some sense of vengeance and justice on his behalf. But also she is grappling with these challenges in her sense of self, specifically relating to disordered eating and her own destructive self image. Image. And there was an awful lot of this in the play. Having read up a little bit on the synopsis, I was sort of anticipating it being very much about this conversation of police brutality through this particular lens, through the lens of this community. But we spent far more time than I had anticipated talking about eating disorders ignited by insecurities in a relationship and exacerbated by debilitating grief, which I think is a fascinating thing to explore, which could almost be its own entire play. I think her story and her journey through this could be its own separate thing. There are a lot of different ideas happening simultaneously in Deep Azure which would perhaps be better served as a series of separate plays or even a longer multi part epic, which I think it really had the scope to be. Even this version, I think is almost three hours long. And it's this interesting patchwork of different ideas and different storytelling techniques nestled alongside one another as we shift between dizzying fantasy and abrupt, brutal reality. This production, which has been directed by Tristan Finn Adwendu, is fascinating because ostensibly it's a very peculiar stage with such a classic Elizabethan feel for this incredibly timely and contemporary piece of theatre to find itself on. But there's brilliance in that as well, and it's a uniquely atmospheric space. This was my first time being in the San Juanmaker Playhouse, named for the actor who came to London in search of Shakespeare's Globe and was horrified to discover that it didn't currently stand there and who helped to bring about its return to London's south bank, but sadly never got to see its conclusion, there's some symmetry there with the writer Chadwick Boseman not having the opportunity to see his work realized on itself stage. But while the actual Globe Theatre itself is modeled after the original version in which Shakespeare's plays were first premiered, this is a candlelit interior Elizabethan auditorium. It is intimate and there is scarcely any artificial lighting, which for a play like this, I think has its advantages and disadvantages because you can innately understand the Shakespearean parallel Like I said, I think it's not just the quality of the language. I think it's also the relation relationships between these characters. I think it's also the way it's introduced. I think this feels like a story of Shakespearean proportions in terms of its emotional scale, where there is the lingering presence of the lost one to be avenged, where there is the villain to be revealed, and where nothing can eclipse the extraordinary grief of a lost love. And yet I would equally be so fascinated to encounter a production of this play existing in a more contemporary space with a more extensive use of lighting. Don't get me wrong, I liked a lot of the choices that they made with the candle lighting, the moments in which they were lowered, the moments when they chose to extinguish a specific number of candles before relighting them again as we moved in and out of darkness and sorrow. But you really wanted for the whole thing like it is on the artwork here, to feel drenched in this relentless moody blue quality. And the sort of inherent warmth of candlelight did feel as though it flew somewhat in the face of the atmosphere that was being curated. I'm also not entirely sure that the vision for the opening moments articulated itself either through presentation or through Paul Will's costume design. It's a sort of a futuristic chorus behaving, not unlike robots, with onstage beatboxes and moments of choreography and acapella singing. As soon as we get get through that though, to the performance of Selena Jones, then I think we are particularly captivated as she really digs her nails into the emotional trauma of this role and this material. It's an intensely powerful performance. There is, I think, so much richness in this piece and it's a sad reminder of the extraordinary talent that Chadwick Boseman had, yes, as an actor, but also as a playwright who I think would have gone on to deliver more, more fascinating, timely and forward thinking work. Now, emotional intensity continues as we head into the review of the next play which heavily explores themes of child loss. If that's not something you want to hear about, I would advise you skip to the next section. This play has actually already finished. I was very lucky to be able to snag a ticket to one of its final few performances a few days ago, by which time it was already quite acclaimed. This is Guess How Much I Love you by Luke Norris, the first main house show of the Royal Court 70th anniversary season, which is already shaping up to be something of a dynamite season for the venue with sold out performances months in advance. Much of the Royal Court Theatre's remit and identity has always been very closely connected to celebrating new writing and emerging playwrights. And this is a world premiere production. When I shared that I had been to see this online, I was asked if it was a theatrical adaptation of the book with the Rabbits, which I happen to have here, because they were giving these out at the season launch for the 70th anniversary season earlier this year or last year perhaps. Honestly, the months they do blur. And my response is that it is not an adaptation of the book with the Rabbits, but it is the story of how two parents find themselves reading it together. And across a handful of scenes we see how a couple's relationship and lives are affected by this challenging situation which together they are forced to navigate, one which first arises at an ang anxious hospital scan early in their pregnancy. And I don't want to tell you too much really, about the exact direction that this takes and the way in which it unfolds, even though we don't necessarily know when this play will be staged again, but I'm sure that it will, whether it transfers to the West End on the basis of this production, or whether it is produced elsewhere at another time as it deserves to be. But there is real power and shock in the way that it presents some of its revelations and the way in which we we learn about certain realities and suddenly realize what it is that we're looking at. There's also, as Luke Norris well understands in the writing of this, a tangible power in what is left unspoken, either because it is too difficult to say or because it feels wrong to articulate. And this very much in love young couple who in the opening minutes of the play are bickering over a game of 20 questions and whether it is being played properly, are soon forced, argue and really wound each other over far bigger conversations. And it's their relationship more than anything else, which feels very raw and acutely honest. There's a sort of an ugliness to the truth that they together have to crawl through. There's much that people will recognize, I think, in their grief and the complexity of it and the confusion of it, and these moments of unexplainable joy and irreconcilable laughter in the face of tragedy and woe. Ultimately, though, it feels like a story about the way in which their relationship is tested and the way in which it is perhaps forever changed irreversibly as a result of the circumstance that they together have had to endure and the extent to which they are still able to feel Like a team who can walk this path, path together. Towards the end of the play, it sort of instills the question, is it impossible now for the two of them to carry on without holding the other's hand, or does that actually make it harder? And in the face of these huge but utterly real emotions, these are two incredibly written roles played with genuine, believable connection by rising theatrical star Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo, who just won a BAFTA award over the weekend. His gradual unraveling is the stuff of real heartbreak. And she has one particular visceral monologue that is going to be unforgettable for me, I think, for a very long time. It isn't the first time I've seen Rosie on stage, but she feels very much at the height of her theatrical powers here. She is fantastic in this role. And the production, directed by Jeremy Heron and designed by Grace Smart, is also fascinating because it's comprised of these extended scenes in static locations. Very often they are waiting. They're waiting for a medical professional to come back into the room, or they are waiting for something to take place. And as the narrative progresses, it fosters a sort of an expectation in us of the story that we are then expecting to see. And there are these sort of prolonged moments of blackout in between scene changes as we. We anticipate what it is we're going to be looking at when the lights come back up, which is a fascinating concept. It's really quite something to be sat there in the darkness, both impatient for and fearful of the scene that you were about to witness, as well as, you know, trying to sort of subconsciously pred where it's going to take us and where it's going to take these characters. As such, the unpredictability factor of this play, I think, is one of its assets. But it's the gut wrenching humanity and honesty of the writing that really makes this extraordinary. This was a knockout piece of theatre, which I hope more people have the chance to experience.
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Mickey Jo
Finally then, only a couple of weeks after it opened at the National Theatre, I had the chance to catch their new production of Terence Ratigan's man and Boy, a very stylish revival of what I have to confess is my very first Ratigan play. I know I have no idea how it's even possible, but seeing as it was, I read up a little about the writer before seeing it, and in fact there's a foreword in this program that talks about the interpretations of queer subtext in a lot of his work, which I needn't have armed myself for on this occasion because the queer subtext of man and Boy is Simply text the two act play takes place entirely within a Greenwich Village AP department in 1930s New York, specifically half a decade on from the Wall street crash. And when we hear on the radio in the establishing moments of this play about the imminent financial collapse of the businessman Gregor Antonescu, what we don't expect is that one half of the young impoverished couple getting ready to go to work is actually his estranged son, no longer calling himself Vasile Antonescu, but instead Basil Anthony. He has much to explain to his girlfriend and actress named Carol when his father arrives for an UNEXP reunion on what is shaping up to be a very fateful day for him. Any catching up between father and son, though, is ultimately short lived. As it transpires, he needs to make use of the residents for a manipulative business transaction through equal parts charm and opportunistic deception, he plans to convince a businessman named Mark Herries to reconsider their recently aborted merger very much in spite of his better financial judgment. And this all proves quite compelling to watch this captivating, confident personality try and crawl his way out of an impossibly deep well with utter certainty that he will prevail, inhibited perhaps only at the final hurdle by his son, who has the ability to jeopardize the entire scheme as his relationship to his father, even in the few hours since they've reconnected, continues to somersault. And in the final moments before the interval, when it seems as though Antonescu has done enough to save himself and has bought himself precious time, and as Basil furiously comes to the realization that he has been used as a seemingly gay porn in his father's scheme in order to manipulate a closeted businessman and flying into a rage about it before fleeing from his own home. I was fascinated by the direction that this was going to continue to take, although it seemed as though there wasn't necessarily that much more mileage beyond reconciling these characters. It is perhaps interesting then that I found the second act to be considerably less fulfilling and I thought there was such an intensity to the first. But we find out quite early on in the second act that any scheme that Gregor Antonescu has perpetrated earlier in the evening has been fraught because he is now being pursued by the FBI. And as we turn the question of his morality and conscience over and over and over, he finds himself flanked by a son who now inexplicably cares deeply for his father in spite of the fury that he just entered into moments before, as well as the latest in A String of Wives who is largely indifferent about the entire situation. I just felt as though everything that we got right about character in the first act, under the direction of Anthony Lau, sort of escaped us in the second. I suddenly not only didn't know who these people were or why they ought to feel this way towards each other, but I couldn't reconcile them with the versions of themselves that I had just met 20min minutes before. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the direction, because I did. I thought it was brilliant. And it's staged in the round, but sort of principally in Traverse with this open plan green carpeted playing space designed by Georgia Lowe, representing multiple different separated rooms of this apartment in which only an upright piano in one corner is meant to be perceived literally. Otherwise. The furnishings there are represented via unemotional office furniture. We have desks and chairs which become beds which are meaningfully pushed together and they aren't even used in an utterly naturalistic sense. Occasionally a table will be laid out with chairs arranged around it to create a sort of a board meeting. But just as often a character will stand atop a table in order to assert dominance, or they will lure another character up to their level. So much was done with chairs and tables to exact ideas of power and authority in the first act, which I thought was just fascinating. This idea of visually suggesting a power struggle to us through height and stature atop these things that we associate with business deals and meetings. There's a sense that even after fleeing from this life, Basil can scarcely escape it and he lays waste to his surroundings in the final Moments of the first act he tears down a clothes rail and it remains there scattered across the the floor for the duration of the second as they soon find themselves in carnage and chaos and hopelessness. Another stunning fixture of the design here is that on one wall behind the playing space, behind one half of the audience, is this sort of old cinema style title treatment with the names of the actors and the characters that they are portraying, which illuminate as they arrive on stage, listed in order of appearance, which from a theatrical sen has us anticipating each of these characters prior to their arrival. We feel the imminence of this impending meeting with Mark Harries and the accountant who he is bringing with him because their names are listed on the board and we know that they are the next people to walk into this room. And all of the costume design is as evocative of that early 20th century setting as the compositions, the music by Angus McCrae. But it's the performances of this company that really bring out the witness and danger and sometimes sexual tension of the whole thing as well. Laurie Kiniston plays Basil Anthony and he is so full of intrigue in the first act and this subdued resentment. I wish that there were a more firmly planted seed of admiration for his father or some sense of regret that gives way to the emotional about turn that he experiences in the second act. Otherwise it just feels out of character character. I also enjoyed Nick Fletcher's self serving Sven and Phoebe Campbell's kind hearted Carol. But it's Ben Daniels performance as Gregor Antonescu which literally and figuratively towers over this production. And again in their initial moments in the first act, I was so transfixed by the almost hypnotic connection between him and Laurie playing the man and boy of the play. And I feel as though, though we lost some sense of that fascination and the reasons as to why it inverted. Why he no longer cared to spend time with his son in the final moments of the play and why his son was so eager to reciprocate the earlier perceived affections. But Ben Daniel's performance in this was quite the epic feat of charisma. Seductive and insidious and as passionate, passionate in victory as he is in defeat. This is a stylish piece of theatre I thoroughly enjoyed and exactly the caliber that I expect from the National Theatre. And that after nearly 90 minutes of my time and hopefully less of yours, brings me to the end of this four play review roundup. I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to see each of these performances at each of these brilliant venues. All of these plays I think, prompt an awful lot of conversation and offer much for an audience to take away. So if you have the opportunity opportunity to see any of them that are still running and would like to, I encourage you to do so, go and check these out for yourself and then come back here and let me know what you thought of them. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to all of my reviews. I hope that you enjoyed if you did, make sure to subscribe here on YouTube and turn on notifications. It's the button somewhere down there that looks like a bell so that YouTube lets you know whenever I post my next video, which will include more play reviews before too long. Alternatively, if it's easier for you, you can also find me on podcast platforms. Finally, as always, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Minky Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe
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Mickey Jo
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Date: February 24, 2026
Host: Mickey Jo (MickeyJoTheatre)
In this engaging roundup episode, Mickey Jo takes listeners through detailed, passionate reviews of four diverse London plays he’s recently seen: Shadowlands, Deep Azure, Guess How Much I Love You, and Man and Boy. With warmth and candor, he explores their themes, scripts, performances, and staging, offering both emotional responses and critical insights throughout the marathon. Grief is a recurring thread in this selection, though each play tackles it uniquely.
[01:25 – 09:20]
[10:27 – 23:03]
[23:32 – 24:05]
[24:05 – 33:54]
Mickey Jo’s review marathon is a heartfelt, insightful journey through four notable (and often emotionally heavy) plays gracing London in 2026. His signature warmth, sharp eye for performance and production details, and relatable theatre-lover’s candor make for an enriching summary of what’s shaping current conversations in theatre. For anyone considering which show is right for them—or simply seeking a taste of what’s live on London stages—this episode is a must-listen (or, with this summary, a must-read).