Four London Play Review Roundup (Mass, Krapp's Last Tape, Mother Courage, and Equus)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: MickeyJoTheatre – Four London Play Review Roundup (Mass, Krapp's Last Tape, Mother Courage, and Equus)

Host: MickeyJoTheatre
Episode Date: May 25, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Mickey Jo embarks on an in-depth roundup review of four recently staged plays in London: Mass at Donmar Warehouse, Krapp’s Last Tape (with curtain-raiser Godot’s To Do List) at the Royal Court Theatre, Mother Courage and Her Children at Shakespeare’s Globe, and Equus at Menier Chocolate Factory. He contextualizes his mental state after experiencing these emotionally heavy plays in quick succession, reflects on recurring themes such as grief and sorrow, and provides nuanced, firsthand critiques of each production.

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1. Mass (Donmar Warehouse)

Start Timestamp: [01:02]

Key Discussion Points

• Production Overview:

  • A stage adaptation (premiere production, adapted from the 2021 film by Fran Kranz) depicting a meeting between two sets of parents—one whose child was killed in a school shooting and the other whose child was the perpetrator.
  • The play is set almost entirely around a table, with a slow revolve and a skylight window, creating a stark, raw focus on the emotional conversation itself.
  • Themes include radicalization, parental responsibility, grief, and restorative justice.

• Comparison to ‘Punch’:

  • Punch (James Graham) covers similar restorative justice themes but offers broader context, while Mass narrows in on the raw confrontation between affected parents.

• Performances:

  • Paul Hilton and Adil Akhtar deliver powerful performances, but Monica Dolan’s portrayal as the mother of the shooter stands out as "haunting."
  • Direction by Carrie Cracknell praised for its restraint and focus on multiple perspectives.

Notable Quotes

• "It is imperative that you check in with the themes and the content advisory warnings for this production before you go and see it for yourself. Not to say that it's... triggering necessarily, so much as incredibly raw and affecting in its exploration of its themes."
  – Mickey Jo ([02:17])

• "Monica Dolan's performance as a mother trying to share fond memories of her clearly tortured son is going to haunt you for days afterwards."
  – Mickey Jo ([11:59])

Memorable Moments

• Mickey Jo’s reflection on unfathomable loss from both sides of a tragedy, drawing from a childhood memory about a book on a mother's perspective ([09:53]).
• Encouragement to see Mass for both its emotional impact and novel theatrical structure, especially poignant in its relevance to US audiences ([12:35]).

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2. Krapp’s Last Tape (Royal Court Theatre) & Godot’s To Do List (Curtain Raiser)

Start Timestamp: [13:35]

Key Discussion Points

• Programming and Structure:

  • Evening opens with Godot’s To Do List by Leo Simpias Ante, a new, witty Beckett-inspired piece performed by Shaquille Hakim, serving as a lively antidote to the main Beckett work.
  • Krapp’s Last Tape features Gary Oldman starring and self-directing, using the original tape recorder from past iconic productions.

• Mickey Jo’s Relationship with Beckett:

  • Openly admits Beckett’s works rarely resonate with him; professional objectivity is limited due to personal taste for abstract/absurd material.
  • Notes that Beckett revivals often become "prestigious works," perhaps too revered, and wonders if the thrill of experimentation has faded.

• Performance & Production Notes:

  • Gary Oldman’s performance respected for depth, patience, and command of the stage through extended silences.
  • Notable use of repetition (banana-eating sequence) and the original tape recorder as a piece of theatrical history.
  • The play’s central concern: the melancholia of memory and regret.

• Criticisms:

  • Finds the play's dense language and slow pace emotionally and intellectually unrewarding ("the inaccessibility of the dialogue, both pre-recorded and newly recorded on stage" ([16:19])).

Notable Quotes

• "I feel like I am spelunking every time I encounter one of these scripts in the desperate hope that I am going to leave the thing with some sort of discovered treasure. But in spite of really my best efforts, I promise you, I find just consistently so little reward."
  – Mickey Jo ([15:04])

• "Thank goodness for Godot's To Do List, for Leo's wit, for Shaquille Hakim's earnest performance, because without that, I might even feel a little disappointed..."
  – Mickey Jo ([15:42])

Memorable Moments

• The repeated banana-eating becomes almost comic in its monotony—"thrilled as I am for his presumably very high potassium levels throughout the limited run" ([15:53]).

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3. Mother Courage and Her Children (Shakespeare’s Globe)

Start Timestamp: [18:13]

Key Discussion Points

• Production Overview:

  • Staged in the main space of Shakespeare’s Globe, not the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as previously thought.
  • The staging leverages the Globe’s in-the-round, communal, quasi-Elizabethan architecture—well-suited to Brecht’s direct, audience-engaging style.

• Plot and Themes:

  • Follows Mother Courage’s struggle to balance her opportunistic surviving and mothering amid the chaos of war.
  • She ultimately suffers the loss of each of her children, the play foretells this fate and frames it as a tragic inevitability.

• Historical and Contemporary Relevance:

  • Written by Brecht in 1939, given renewed relevance in light of current world conflicts; new translation by Anna Jordan.
  • Strong female leads, particularly Michelle Terry (also the Globe’s artistic director) as Mother Courage, and Nadine Higgin as Yvette.

• Creative Direction & Design:

  • Vivid staging with scaffolding, metal drums, and a passerelle (walkway), notably depicting the increasingly difficult task of pushing Mother Courage’s cart as her children perish.
  • Atmospheric music by James Maloney enhances the wartime setting.

• Performance Highlights:

  • Michelle Terry’s performance praised for depth, especially in expressing maternal grief—a recurring theme in the episode’s reviewed plays.

Notable Quotes

• "It is, in the Globe space, just so present and so vital... Michelle Terry would do this... half glance to the sound of any passing plane that would be flying overhead, it being in the flight path. But also the way in which we spectate Productions there is so singular..."
  – Mickey Jo ([23:19])

• "A production of Mother Courage and her children at the Globe has to by definition have something powerful to say. And this one absolutely does." – Mickey Jo ([24:43])

Memorable Moments

• Vivid description of the cart becoming "a Sisyphean endeavor" as Mother Courage is left alone, a poignant visual metaphor ([22:46]).

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4. Equus (Menier Chocolate Factory)

Start Timestamp: [26:04]

Key Discussion Points

• Production Overview:

  • New staging of Peter Shaffer’s psychological classic; the host’s first time seeing the play, though well-versed in its cultural infamy (notably Daniel Radcliffe’s nude performance years ago).
  • Explores the relationship between a psychiatrist (Dysart, played by Toby Stevens) and Alan Strang (Noah Valentine), a 17-year-old who blinded six horses.

• Themes:

  • Sexuality, repression, religious guilt, the quest for normalcy, and the ethics of psychiatric intervention.
  • Considers whether Alan’s "worship" of horses serves as a stand-in for taboo desires in 1970s Britain.

• Performance & Staging:

  • Noah Valentine described as "compelling"—squirming with tension, convincing in fragility and anger.
  • Horses are portrayed by actors, not with costumes or masks, for human intimacy and intimacy with Alan.
  • Noted for striking visual and physical staging: actors’ bodies smeared, almost balletic movement.
  • Audience surrounds the action on three sides, heightening involvement.

• Critique:

  • Mickey Jo feels the material’s shock value has faded, and he questions the psychiatrist’s ultimate stance of ambivalence toward Alan.
  • However, praises the production as "stylish and affecting," with Toby Stevens’ haunted performance anchoring the piece.

Notable Quotes

• "If everyone in the room knows it as the sexy horseplay, then it's not necessarily going to be as much of a surprise when we, after a very drawn out process, come to discover that we're watching the sexy horseplay. You know what I mean?"
  – Mickey Jo ([26:21])

• "The way in which the few moments of actual horseback riding are staged are quite beautiful and majestic, while also feeling dangerous enough and a little haunting in their own way."
  – Mickey Jo ([29:40])

Memorable Moments

• Pointed and witty aside about the play’s notoriety: "If you haven't seen any production of Equus before in your lifetime, I dare say, as a determined theatre goer, that you ought to at least once. Some viewer discretion is obviously advisable..." ([32:29])

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5. Closing Thoughts & Thematic Connections

Start Timestamp: [33:20]

• Mickey Jo observes a throughline of grief, sorrow, and parental trauma across all four plays.
• Notes the richness and vitality of London theatre "beyond the West End" and encourages listeners to expand their theatregoing horizons.
• Invites listener feedback and discussion of personal experiences with these plays.
• Signs off with his signature upbeat encouragement to "have a Stagey Day."

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Summary Table: Major Points and Timestamps

| Play | Venue | Main Themes | Standout Aspects | Start Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------|-------------------------|-----------------------------------|---------------------------------------------|----------------| | Mass | Donmar Warehouse | Grief, parental trauma, justice | Monica Dolan’s performance, raw structure | [01:02] | | Krapp’s Last Tape + Godot’s To Do List | Royal Court Theatre | Memory, regret, Beckett, satire | Gary Oldman’s performance, curtain raiser | [13:35] | | Mother Courage and Her Children | Shakespeare’s Globe | War, motherhood, loss | Michelle Terry, communal space, design | [18:13] | | Equus | Menier Chocolate Factory| Repression, psychiatry, spectacle | Physicality, Toby Stevens, notorious script | [26:04] |

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Recommended Listening: Key Segment Timestamps

• Mass review: [01:02] – [13:19]
• Krapp’s Last Tape & Godot’s To Do List: [13:35] – [18:13]
• Mother Courage and Her Children: [18:13] – [26:04]
• Equus: [26:04] – [33:20]
• Final thoughts: [33:20] – [34:56]

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Final Notes

Mickey Jo delivers an honest, insightful, and occasionally self-effacing set of reviews, making clear both his critical expertise and personal theatrical preferences. He weaves connecting threads between these disparate works, always emphasizing the emotional impact and contemporary resonance of theatre, especially when daring material is boldly staged in London’s ever-thriving off-West End venues.

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Transcript

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[Mickey Jo]

Every year I see, as you may already know, hundreds of theatrical productions. Last year I saw 275. This year I am firmly on track to hit 300. What I'm going to tell you about today are four of the plays, technically four and a half, that I saw in the last two weeks. And consider, if you will, the mental state that I have been in seeing this particular collection of plays. Seeing Beckett and Brecht and Equus and Mass in the space of a fortnight. Of course, if you don't necessarily know what any or all of those plays are and why they would leave me frazzled, let me tell you. But just before I do, a quick introduction to me for those of you meeting me for the first time. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome to my theater themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to these reviews on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am an independent theater critic and a content creator here on social media and today we are doing another multi review roundup because I have been seeing an awful lot of theatre over the last couple of weeks and I've seen a great many interesting plays. What connects these four is that they are all at sort of off west end venues. Firstly, we're going to talk about Mass at the Donmar Warehouse. I bought myself a ticket to that one after some strong recommendations. Then I was invited to review Crap's Last Tape at the Royal Court with Godot's to do list as a curtain raiser. I'll explain what that is in due course, then, I was hugely intrigued to head to Shakespeare's Globe, where I was invited to review Mother Courage and her children in their main theatrical space, that iconic venue and finally, Equus, a new revival of the Peter Schaeffer play at the Menier Chocolate Fact Factory. So, so much for us to talk about today between these four completely different productions. Of course, if you have had the opportunity to see these or any other productions of the same plays for yourself, I would love to know what you thought about them in the comments section down below. And if you enjoy listening to my thoughts and would like to hear more of my theatrical reviews, you can find many more of them wherever you are seeing my face or hearing my voice. Or you can subscribe for many more coming soon here on YouTube or follow me on podcast platforms, or to stay up to date with any everything that I see at the theatre and everything that I say about it. You can sign up to my free weekly email substack newsletter at the link in the Description for now, though, we have some plays to talk about, beginning with Mas at the Donmar Warehouse. So MAS is going to be a challenging play to talk about. It is also in many ways a challenging play to watch. It is imperative that you check in with the themes and the content advisory warnings for this production before you go and see it for for yourself. Not to say that it's and I hesitate to even use the word, but triggering necessarily so much as incredibly raw and affecting in its exploration of its themes, it depicts a conversation had between parents in the years following a deadly school shooting, that being what the title is in reference to. And it is a new play at the Donmar Warehouse in a premiere production, although it is actually adapted from a film of the Same name from 2021, written by the same the playwright and screenwriter Fran Krantz. And I haven't seen the film. I would be hugely intrigued to, because the 100 minute play is so still and so steady and so utterly focused in its setting and its intentions. It's also deliberately this act of theatrical conversation that guides you into itself so gently and really, I think, nurtures an audience before taking them to among the furthest and most harrowing emotional depths of this particular conversation. What's happening here is this is a highly anticipated meeting between two sets of parents, the parents of a child who was killed during a school shooting, and the parents of the shooter. As such, their encounter is an obviously heavy one. It's something of an inevitable confrontation, masked in politeness and pleasantries, and an attempt At Mutual Understanding, it has also been meticulously arranged. This is a meeting that has been brokered via the support of a group and at a local center to which many of them have traveled. And this is the introduction that we get as an audience, which is a handful of smaller supporting characters who we don't really see for the remainder of the play. Readying the space and kind of discussing between themselves how it ought to be presented and how the day is expected to go. Preparing every detail carefully and conscientiously, such that this quartet of grievance characters, when they arrive, needn't think about all of these things, needn't notice a conspicuously placed tissue box and feel as though their emotions are going to be presumed. Now, we don't really encounter those initial characters again, the staff and volunteers who ready this space for them, but there is something interesting about the youngest of them, a young man who seems to have some sort of a meaningful connection to what is being discussed. It isn't necessarily clear and we can kind of infer some sense, but I don't think it's meant to be too heavy handed an idea. Whether he attends the school in question. It doesn't seem as though he would have necessarily been there at the same time, whether he just feels adjacent to what is being discussed, whether he feels adjacent to the conversation about a young lonely man being radicalized. Because that is a lot of the territory that we are exploring in this conversation. There is less said about the victim and other victims of this shooting than there is about its perpetrator, the shooter, the son of two of these adults. And what radicalized him, what drove him to this particular goal, and crucially, whether his parents ought to bear any of that responsibility. How could it possibly be that they couldn't see this coming? Why didn't they prevent it? And once we get to there, we are on incredibly difficult terrain. What's fascinating about the production directed by Carrie Cracknell, is it is all simply laid bare. They sit around this table on four sides of it, which is set into an incredibly slow revolution on a little turntable on a set which seems to be a slightly reskinned version of the next to normal set that played at the Donmar warehouse a couple of years ago. It's been designed by Anna Yates. And other than this central table and the incredibly slow revolve that forces us to engage with different perspectives and different reactions, the different faces that are coming together to have this challenging conversation is a skylight window above that is referenced in the script that allows Light to shine in reminding these people who have been living some of the darkest years of their lives and continue to, that the sun continues to shine in the sky. Now, it was very interesting for me seeing this play in the context of having recently seen the Olivier Award winning James Graham play Punch, which recently played in the West End and on Broadway. And that also covers the subject of restorative justice, which is sort of the same thing that is happening here in this particular conversation. In Punch, we get a lot more of the backstory. We are acquainted with victim and perpetrator firsthand. We build towards it. There is considerably more nuance and context around this conversation, even if that is eventually the play's focal point and the thing that's going to stay with you. Mass has a significantly narrower focus. The play slightly redistributes its weight towards the end when a couple of the participants leave and then one returns in order to share one final anecdote about her son and the version of him that she is going to have to remember. And it also makes sense by definition, because unlike Punch, this is not about the event itself. This is not about victim or perpetrator. This is about the parents who are left behind and how they engage with each other and the two very different sides of the table that they are sitting on. It made me think about a conversation that struck me when I was perhaps 10 years old on a holiday with my parents and family, friends, and people were talking about the books that they had read recently, and one person had read a book from the perspective of a mother about her son becoming a serial killer and this notion of it being every mother's worst nightmare. And it's truly this unfathomable loss on both sides here. It's an unfathomable loss, but trying to depict the emotional response of a parent to the loss of a child, but also the loss of a child who in the process has perpetrated this dreadful crime. How you reconcile all of that with the version of them that you had seen that morning, but also how you reconcile that with the version of them that you held as a baby. And there's beautiful work here throughout the company. Paul Hilton judders in conflict and Adil Akhtar really actualizes the rage as a component of his grief and the frustration that lingers with him. But it's Monica Dolan's performance as a mother trying to share fond memories of her clearly tortured son that is going to haunt you for days afterwards. Mass, I believe, is running at Donmar Warehouse until early June. I'M hugely intrigued about whether there will be any subsequent productions of this, particularly in the United States, where this is a more acutely felt and remembered issue, for obvious reasons. But if you have the capacity, I encourage you both for its emotional impact and for the novelty of its structure to go and see Maas at the Donmar. Next up, we're heading back to the Royal Court where Jon Proctor is the villain. Recently conclud its limited run as part of their sold out 70th anniversary season, the success of which continues with a transfer of Gary Oldman directing and starring in a new production of Beckett's Crap's Last Tape with a curtain raiser performance of Godot's To Do List. And voila, there it is. Written by Leo Simpias Ante, this is a thrilling and clever piece of programming from the ever brilliant artistic director Dave Byrne. And it's something of a novelty because when Crap's Last Tape was either first programmed at the Royal Court or certainly programmed at the Royal Court, it was as a curtain raiser, which is to say a short performance at the beginning of a longer evening at the theatre. And so prior to the one act performance of Crap's Last Tape, and without much of a substantial interval between the two, audience had treated to Godot's To Do List. And this is a take on Becketan Theatre. Obviously there is a waiting for Godot reference. In some respects it feels like another side of the coin to that, but it also has a very contemporary, temporary, playful vitality to it, which I appreciate, especially alongside a piece of Beckett. And at this point I think I have to just accept the fact that if there are any playwrights out there that I'm never really going to gel with, and I will continue to do my best with Pinter, then I think Beckett is probably the one. Because the way I continue to give these productions chances and the way I continue to extract so little from them, and evidently I am probably not best placed to deliver you an objective verdict excess of this particular production of Craps Last Tape, because I really just don't get on with this particular style of writing, with the absurdity and the abstract nature of it all. And I think what's curious to me is the context in which it is arriving. Because when these plays were first written, they were bold and unconventional and they played with form and they were adventurous. And often now when they are revived, they are done so as prestigious works taken on by celebrations, celebrated actors. And so it's in the context of like great theatre, the likes of which you are expected to get, but also to profoundly respect. And there is much to respect about this production, about Gary Oldman's performance, and about even the play itself. Certainly the nuance in the acting that he's doing, his ability to really hold the fascination and intrigue of an audience throughout the stillness and the silence of this. There are such gaping passages of silence and emptiness in this play that he meets both without fear and without haste. And there is plenty to read into and infer. I feel like I am spelunking every time I encounter one of these scripts in the desperate hope that I am going to leave the thing with some sort of discovered treasure. But in spite of really my best efforts, I promise you, I find just consistently so little reward. I find so little emotional reward, intellectual reward. And so you know what? Thank goodness for Godot's to Do list, for Leo's wit, for Shaquille Hakim's earnest performance, because without that, I might even feel a little disappointed in programming like this at the Royal Court. And you have to respect the revival of a play that premiered there, and it's demonstrably done. Great business. People are hugely excited to see Gary Oldman on stage, especially directing himself. But it's not what thrills me, especially at a venue that has come to be known as a real furnace for more striking and invigorating new writing. When I think about how I felt every time I sat and watched John Proctor as the villain, and then how I felt enduring what I would characterize as a snooze fest that happened to be starring Gary Oldman, it feels like a different building. Let me tell you, though, a little bit more about this play. The notion is that Crap is listening to recordings that he has made of himself detailing his life, and he is, I believe, in the play, aged 69, listening to a recording of himself aged 39. Gary Oldman has, for the purposes of this, recorded himself, I believe, modulating his voice in order to sound younger. And there is a pronounced, striking difference. He is also using, there is some novelty here, the actual tape recorder that was used in previous productions by John Hurt and Michael Gambon. The role has also been famously played on stage by Harold Pinter. And there will certainly be critics who will be better placed than I to comment on the differences and the nuances is. And where Gary Oldman's interpretation sits alongside those. You're not going to get any of that from me. What I do find interesting is the way in which the quality of despair shifts, because it is almost immediately sorrowful even as he sits there quietly and painstakingly eating an entire banana on stage, considering it, discarding the now useless banana peel and then reflecting for a brief moment before pulling out, you guessed it, a second banana and eating that, repeating the same thing, and thrilled as I am for his presumably very high potassium levels throughout the limited run of Crap's Last Tape at the Royal Court Theatre, it's hardly compelling. Eventually, though, as he listens to these recordings and reflects on one particular chapter repeatedly before issuing new recordings, there is a shift in his mood and with very little live dialogue, what this play is equipped to talk about is the melancholia of memory. And that is something that Gary Oldman characterizes with real woe as he fairly enough holds our focus throughout this almost an hour long play. And it's not even that I have issues with it, structurally or conceptually. I do think it's probably more of a novelty than anything else, and it is perhaps disproportionately revived. But my biggest issue is the inaccessibility of the dialogue, both pre recorded and newly recorded on stage. I would liken it to trying to read Ulysses, which is also hugely celebrated in its own right, but is too complex for and too dense to completely absorb in real time at pace on your first reading. So who knows, maybe I will defy my own instructions to myself and go and see another production of Crap's Last Tape. Perhaps 30 years from now I can watch my own review and listen to a recording of me talking about it in sheer novelty. Maybe we have a little comparison to look forward to in three decades time. For now, that has been my attempt to enjoy this at the Royal Court. It's running there until the 30th of May. It is very sold out, but there are ways to still get last minute tickets. Tickets on Monday performances via the show's website, but also Daily Rush tickets. I believe on today

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[Mickey Jo]

ticks. Next up. To my surprise and contrary to my expectations, I had a very different experience with Mother Courage and her children and at Shakespeare's Globe. For the longest time, I thought that this was being staged in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. It isn't. It's being staged in the main space, which I ultimately think is a really good idea. Now, the main space at Shakespeare's Globe, which is a recreation of the iconic Elizabethan playhouse in which many of Shakespeare's plays premiered, is a really fascinating one. It isn't necessarily the most conducive to drama. It is often better equipped for comedy. And of all of Shakespeare's plays, the comedies and the tragedy, it is often those heartwarming, hilarious beats that are better drawn out at the Globe. Not exclusively, but in my experience, much of the time. Very interesting, then, to stage something so bleak as Mother Courage and Her Children, which takes place across various different desolate battlefields. What makes this well suited to the space, however, one in which it is encircled on multiple levels by standing and sitting patrons, is that this is Brecht, and this inherently plays to the gallery, as it were. This plays to an audience and creates a sense of community and poses moral quandaries. As we follow Mother Courage, whose rolling cart, which initially acts as a canteen and a source of supplies, and later more exclusively of ammunition and bullets and weaponry, is being pushed across Waterland by her three devoted children. She is an unapologetic opportunist who is an increasingly dire circumstances, trying to accommodate her two priorities in life, which is to sustain herself and make money and survive, and also to take care of her children, to protect them from war, from the impact and the implications of it, from being convinced to enlist and dying for that cause, or for being persecuted, kidnapped or attacked in the line of fire. Ultimately, the heartbreaking reality depicted in this play, and it being Brecht, it, outlines much of this for you towards the beginning, is that Courage, even though she always seems to manage to find a way to stay afloat and maintain her business and her livelihood, eventually loses each of her children one by one in the process. There is some proximity, and not to be musical theatre about this, but to the character of Rose in Gypsy, specifically, the moment in the second act of that musical fable in which she forsakes her own principles and in pursuit of this singular dream that she has always had and can't quite relinquish her grip of, volunteers her daughter to perform as a stripper in the burlesque house where they have found themselves. There is some proximity, I think, between her and Mother Courage and the choices that she makes, and the moment when she is bartering for the life of her race recently kidnapped son, and she sends less money than she could because she needs some funds to be withheld on which she can survive. Now, Brecht originally wrote this play in the auspicious year of 1939, and the world now finds itself in another turbulent moment of international conflict. What is communicated strikingly in this new translation by Anna Jordan is the utter cruelty of war, the symmetry of its cruelty and the toll that it takes on its participants. This is explicitly a conflict over land and resources that has taken place over many years, the likes of which very familiar to us right now. This is a largely female led production starring the Globe's current artistic director, Michelle Terry, in a good role for her and directed by Ellie Weil. And it has an awful lot to say about what war does to women and the violence that it inflicts on women and the options that are left to them in these circumst Mother Courage chooses one path and Yvette, a prostitute who claws her way up in the world, played memorably by Nadine Higgin, walks a slightly different version of the same road. It also satirizes the lunacy and hypocrisy of war and peacetime in one moment, when a soldier is executed for performing the same tasks for which he was previously celebrated and decorated during war, it having become peacetime only moments before and him not having necessarily realized. There are a handful of strong performances of Shakespearean scale almost within this company. Ferdy Roberts, as a former man of God reduced to something a little different by the horrors of war, exacts similar sort of Shakespearean wisdom or foolishness. And among Mother Courage's children, Rochelle Diederichs as the unspeaking but hugely emotive Catrin, gives a thoroughly moving performance. Performance. It's Michelle Terry, though, who blazes at the heart of this production like an enduring beacon in a rainstorm. And she over time grows more weary and loses a quality of the bravado with which she has arrived. But the force that she conveys through this character while also creating space for her maternal grief. That being a connecting theme between multiple of the plays that I'm talking about today, reminds you the kind of caliber of actor that she is. There's also some rich creative work happening for this production. Takis, the designer dressing the stage with with scaffolding and metal drums. There is an extended sort of a walkway. Oh, there's a name for this in musical theater circles. It's the thing that extends out around the orchestra pit. They used it in hello Dolly Passerelle a sort of a passerelle for Mother Courage's cart to be pushed around, the pushing of the thing becoming more challenging as their numbers are depleting, eventually ending up with this visual of her trying to push the thing herself, what begins to feel like a Sisyphean endeavor. There is also music stirring enough for Wartime from James Maloney, and something about the spirit of this entire production and its glimmer of hope in spite of the desolation and devastation that it depicts and the real human atrocities reminding us of the ongoing cruelty in the world as we sit watching it. Something about it in the Globe space struck me profoundly. There's something about the way that it plays there where the performances feel feel so present and so vital. Michelle Terry would do this, you know, in times of war, sort of half glance to the sound of any passing plane that would be flying overhead, it being in the flight path. But also the way in which we spectate Productions there is so singular the way in which it speaks out to us and insists on something. A production of Mother Courage and her children at the Globe has to by definition have something powerful to say. And this one absolutely does. It is running in rep with other productions at the venue this summer. Go and check it out.

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[Mickey Jo]

for yourself. Finally, then, earlier this week I was at the Menier Chocolate Factory for the Press night performance of Equus, a new production of the play by Peter Schaeffer. This was my first time seeing Equus, but I have known the themes, the plot, the ideas of this play for some years and I'm very intrigued about how that affects one's relationship to a production of it that they see. And I'M intrigued about that on a large scale. If a majority of the audience knows where this play is going and knows it, pardon me for saying so, and spoiler alert for those of you who don't know what Equus is, I would caution you, probably out of my sheer curiosity about how it affects your experience, to just go and see it first, knowing as little as possible, then come back to my thoughts here. Certainly there will be spoilers, but if everyone in the room knows it as the sexy horseplay, then it's not necessarily going to be as much of a surprise when we, after a very drawn out process, come to discover that we're watching the sexy Horseplay. You know what I mean? And obviously I'm trivializing it here, but there was a very conspicuous revival of the play years ago starring Daniel Radcliffe in the midst of filming a well known film franchise that got a lot of press attention because of the total nudity on stage as well as the equine nature of the amorous activities depicted, and that I think for an entire generation basically spoiled the plot of Equus. But then I also wonder in theatrical circles prior to that, whether everyone after it first premiered knew what Equus was anyway, how much of this play is even meant to be a surprise? Now, the play depicts a handful of sessions between a child psychiatrist, one who describes himself as navigating a period of professional menopause, and a troubled young man who has recently been convicted of blinding a stable full of horses and who at the outset of the play isn't willing to speak but simply sings songs from television adverts instead. The young man, whose name is Alan Strang and who is portrayed by Noah Valentine, is 17 years old. He is only still a child and afforded the innocence of one for perhaps a number of months, weeks, even days. The psychiatrist Dysart, meanwhile, is played by the veteran actor Toby Stevens. It's a role that has been played by many established and esteemed actors over the years, and he begins his introductory narration with a sense of frenzied desperation as we flashback to an earlier moment in their professional relationship at the beginning of this encounter. He has a touch almost of the Alan Bennett comedy about him, eventually his own neuroses and anxieties, a recurring dream that he describes to a colleague about ancient ritual child sacrifice that he is performing, and you don't need to be a trained psychiatrist to figure out the implications of slicing a child and rummaging around in their innards. He is likening it to the impact of his own profession and whether he is shaping young minds and psyches in a way that is detrimental to them, or perhaps unfair in some way in pursuit of the idea of normalcy. All of that eventually intermingles with the perturbation that he experiences after convincing Alan to disclose more of the reasons behind why he blinded all of these horses. The explanation being a rather unexpected one, unless, of course, you know what the play is about already. And for young Alan Strang, who experiences conflict in the home between his religious mother and his, in many ways very repressed father, whom he discovers watching a lewd film, Alan being an attempt attendance with a young woman that he is there on a date with, who has also helped him get a weekend job at the stables where he loves to work with the horses. He has this whole thing about horses going back years after an encounter on the beach with his parents, where he was scooped up onto the back of a horse and experienced this sort of erotic sensation as a result of the horse's sweat and strength between his legs. All of this detailed in far more explicit and emotional terms in the play play itself. Noah Valentine's performance, I thought, was compelling. As Alan Strang, he is, from the beginning, squirming with tension and shifting with irritation and clenching his fists very quick to anger. The atmosphere of the entire play, from its very initial moments, is characterized with darkness and tension. There's something incredibly eerie about the lighting, about the use of sound. And Lindsay Posma's production manages to be both stylish and affecting. The way in which the horses are depicted is via a small ensemble of actors, without masks or headpieces or anything to suggest horse. Allowing for a little bit more intimacy between the two performers, between the boy and the animals that he is working with, that he is stripping his clothes off and riding in secret in fields late at night. There is, it seems, some clear allegorical relationship between the erotic fixation depicted in this play and the possibility of other sexual inclinations that wouldn't have been accepted in 1970s society or perhaps had only recently been decriminalized. The play has an awful lot to say, in parallel to the whole thing with the horses, about men being unable to meaningfully sexually engage with their wives or girlfriends, friends, and to stage Alan intimately alongside half a dozen male performers whose bodies are smeared with this kind of a dark substance. I think adds to that conversation as well. The way in which the few moments of actual horseback riding are staged are quite beautiful and majestic, while also feeling dangerous enough and a little haunting in their own way. Much of the physicality of this production, whether it's the sort of balletic way, way in which the horse ensemble move around the space and watch Alan and enthrall or intimidate him, or whether it's the way that they sit silently watching on from the back like a jury, is really pretty stunning. There are some other great creative choices. There are a bunch of other smaller supporting characters who are sat on various different corners of the front rows. The audience are sat around three sides of the playing space. And I do think the execution, particularly of this really creatively rewarding production, as well as the performances, amounts to a little more than the material itself. I do feel as though it has become disempowered over time beyond its shock value. I'm also not wholeheartedly convinced of the real reluctance of Dysart's character to absolve Alan of his equine fascination at the end of the play in the name of whatever principles Dysart feels newly committed to and the respect that he has for the worship that Alan has found. I think there's an inability of him to really see the bigger picture here. Like, sure, you can think that it's majestic that he has found this sense of sanctity, dark as it may be, but the boy still blinded a bunch of horses. Like, I get that you're going through your own thing personally, but there is clearly work to be done. The powerful last word in this production is given by Toby Stevens, whose haunted performance as dicey art is really exceptional stuff. This, evidently is an acquired taste. It's just begun its limited run at the Menier Chocolate Factory. If you haven't seen any production of Equus before in your lifetime, I dare say, as a determined theatre goer, that you ought to at least once. Some viewer discretion is obviously advisable, but the performances are convincing to the last, and the production, I think, is just gorgeous. Those, then, have been my thoughts about four of the plays that I saw over the last couple of weeks in London. There is fantastic work happening at many of London's theatres, often beyond the West End. Obviously a lot of connecting themes here in terms of grief and sorrow, but plenty to be fascinated by. If you have had the opportunity to go and see any of these plays, either these current productions or previous ones that you'd like to tell me about in the past, please let us know in the comments section down below. And if you enjoyed listening to my reviews, then stay tuned for many more coming soon. Go and check out the many other reviews that I've already shared and feel free to subscribe here on YouTube, follow me on podcast platforms, or sign up to my free weekly substack. In the meantime, this has taken long enough. Thank you so much for listening and I hope, as always, that everyone is staying safe and that you have a Stagey Day. For 10 more seconds. I'm Micky Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe

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