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- [00:00]
Martha Stewart
I'm Martha Stewart and I believe the best gifts are not only beautiful, but useful every single day. And Lenox has brought timeless beauty and lasting quality to our tables for generations. And their Lenox Spice Village is the perfect holiday gift for someone you love or for yourself. Spice Village transforms everyday spices into inspired memories filled with warmth and joy all year long. Give a gift that lasts beyond the holidays. Discover the collection@lenox.com SpiceVillage we all take.
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- [01:07]
Micky Jo Theatre Critic
Acast powers the world's best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend. The world of commercial real estate is changing and fast. Welcome to in the Loop. We're diving into the topics that hit the hardest. We'll explore what's happening today.
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Micky Jo Theatre Critic
Can be decreased stress and irritability. Tomorrow. How can you bring components of the 15 minute city of the urban grid, the things people like, the gathering places and beyond. When you start thinking about the future and start thinking about these things are coming in 2030 or 2040 or 2050, then you can go, okay, now how do I actually take actions today to make that happen? Subscribe to in the Loop wherever you get your podcast. ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com I could sit here for the next hour or so and intellectualize about why this piece of theatre works as well as it does. I could tell you how compelling it is as a piece of storytelling, which a lot of other pieces of theatre are. I could tell you about this powerhouse central performance from Jack Holden, the likes of which we have seen on other stages already this year. What I will say about this that I haven't said about a lot of other shows is that honestly, it's just really f cool in a way that not a lot of theater is. A lot of stuff is impressive and remarkable and engaging. Not a lot is this cool. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I'm obsessed with all Things Theater theatre. As a theatre critic and content creator here on social media, I am currently in the midst of a 12 day stretch of seeing shows every single day before I take a little bit of a festive break. We are also in a busy season for openings because that's just what the shows are trying to do as well. Not that they'll be taking a festive break, but they all want to have their official opening night before the Christmas period. And so critics around the country are seeing by and large a lot of like pantomimes, specifically Christmas shows, or a lot of sort of festive family protest programming, things that are magical and enchanting and joyous and wintry. And Ken Rex, currently playing at the other Palace Theatre in London, is just about none of those things. You know, you've got Christmas countercultural programming and then you've got Kenrex, which is this explosive, multi rolling true crime performance on stage, which is sort of nothing like I've ever seen before. There is some familiarity with solo shows like Baby Reindeer. This is more like what you get if you handed baby reindeer a shrimp shotgun or I guess maybe shot baby reindeer with that shotgun. It's a creative collaboration from writer and performer Jack Holden. And when you get work like this and the lines between writing and performance and direction begin to blur, it feels less like those kind of titles. And we'll talk about who did all of those roles, but it starts to feel more just like the word theater maker becomes appropriate here. And that's always how I've thought of Jack Holden, who has been an actor in other people's plays and who has written plays with other people acting in them, but who has on a couple of occasions now delivered these new innovative solo shows. And I say solo show with an asterisk because he's not the only performer on stage, but he is in both instances thus far, taking charge of the dialogue and the narrative and portraying all of these different characters. The first was Cruise, which was a real gift to audiences as we were emerging from the theatrical shutdown during the pandemic. And the follow up is the tonally completely different Ken Rex, which had a little off West End run at the Southwark Playhouse. It's now playing at a slightly larger venue. The other pal, before what I would imagine is going to be a very exciting future. We're going to talk all about this play today. I will tell you what it is about, I will tell you how it works on stage and I hope to be able to articulate why it is so good of course, if you have had the chance to see it already, then you can help me out in the comment section down below. Please share all of your thoughts about Ken Rex. In the meantime, here are mine if you like listening, make sure to subscribe. Follow me on podcast platforms. Do whatever you have to do so you don't miss any of my many upcoming reviews. Oh there are so many for now, just like they do in the play. Let's talk about Kenrics. So when you walk into the auditorium of the other Palace Theatre, this single tier raked, semi intimate playing space, what you see by way of the playing space is a thrust stage painted entirely green upon which are several props and a couple of set pieces, the whole thing being very rich with theatrical possibility. We are going to do some honest to God storytelling here by way of a desk with music equipment on it, by way of several microphones on stands, by way of some like Perspex drum screens around a chair, by way of a step unit on casters that can be moved around and a screen and various other devices that performer Jack Holden is going to use to grip us tightly for the next couple of hours. Jack is joined on stage by another performer, John Patrick Elliot, who is performing music of his own composition at the back corner of the playing space. Occasionally it contributes to this sort of a cinematic vibe and it just sort of underscores this is very much still a play rather than anything resembling a musical. On other occasions, the music becomes more explicitly required in the narrative. Jack Holden plays one character who sings a song. He plays another character who has a theme song, which is about as cartoonish as it sounds and might seem a little out of place in what I have been describing to you as a very Netflix documentary familiar true crime thriller. And it is that. Tonally, that's exactly what it is, but it's also a theatrical evolution of that that sort of struck me as feeling like making A Murderer meets the Simpsons. If you remember nothing else I say from this review, remember that. Because once I realized it on my second visit to the show last week, having seen it previously at Southwark Playhouse, I couldn't shake that idea that that was the tonal convergence of this. Or it feels like an episode of the Simpsons where everyone's just having a really intensely bad day and the whole thing is contextualized within the framing of a recorded with a member of law enforcement played by Jack Holden, as is the interviewer, which flashes back to a panicked phone call that a wife is making about her husband who has been shot. This being the jumping off point for an explosive story about Ken Rex, who it materializes is a man. His name was Ken Rex McElroy. Like I said, this is true crime. This actually happened. Ken Rex's story has previously been adapted as a book, which was turned into, I think, a TV movie. It has been referenced in popular culture and now it is told through this gripping stage play co written by Jack Holden and Ed Stamboloyan, who is also the director. And the time eventually comes for Jack to portray Kenrex, which he does through this fascinating physicality. We could talk extensively about all of the details of these different characterizations that he brings to life on this stage. And the cartoonish quality of it is, I think, important not only because it would be relentlessly and intensely miserable if there wasn't some sense of levity, which we're only going to find through a little bit of color in these portrayals, but also because it helps us, as do the characterizations and the physicality, to get a sense of who it is we're talking about here. There's a passage of this where we've just become so inundated with the names of different locals and townspeople, after which we don't really meet anybody new except for one important character. We also, I guess, come to find out later on that something of a theatrical trick has been perpetrated here by introducing all of these characters in such a light hearted and cartoonish way as we meet the slightly silly mayor and the vicar. And it's at this point that I'm thinking about the Simpsons, right, But with Ken Rex, it's entirely different. And we learn through the sound, through the lighting and through Jack's physicality that this is a sinister, malicious presence. At the very beginning, even before he tells us about Kendrick's reputation and why he has become the town bully and his dubious past and his criminal activity, he lowers his shoulder to one side and brings the other one up closer to his head. It's this sort of a Richard III meets Mr. Hyde kind of a posture. This asymmetric hunch completed with a very bassy drawl and this pained grimace entirely in contrast to like the vivacious radio dj, the squeaky voiced pastor and the gossipy store worker who we've just met. Now, by this point, we've been introduced through Jack's performance not only to all of the different townspeople, but also where this is taking place. The town of Skidmore. With this really vivid picture of it being established through the narration, we're told that this is a town where locals recognize each other from a distance by the way that they drive their pickup trucks, and crucially, that it is remote enough and small enough that it takes any real police presence more than an hour to arrive from the neighboring town of St. Joseph. The essential focus of the material here is this verbal storytelling. And if you were to sit across a table from Jack Holden as he less theatrically told you this story, it would still be, I'm sure, utterly captivating. But it is elevated far beyond that, not just through his transformative chameleonic performance, but also through the astounding creative collaboration that's happening in the space as well. This musical wizardry that is being curated at all times. You never see John Patrick Elliot stop moving in the same way that Jack Holden doesn't. It's an indefatigable performance from each of them, and it's a very innovative but also very fast paced and demanding show where the technical elements are concerned. Giles Thomas Sound Design has a couple of great surround sound moments that contribute to the overall sense of intimidation that is being found throughout the thing. Just steadily we are getting more and more unsettled as we find ourselves feeling increasingly situated in the town among these increasingly desperate people. Desperate because though he has been the town bully for some time, Ken Rex McElroy's behavior begins to worsen after the inciting event, which is his attendance of the punkin show. Punkin, not pumpkin. That's apparently very important, where he is entranced by the performance of the Star Spangled Banner by a local high school student named Trina McLeod. The brilliance of the one person performance, of it all, being that the Star Spangled Banner is sung atop an elevated part of the set by Jack Holden against a backdrop of video design. With his live vocal eventually ending as the song continues to ring out so he can descend the stairs and then go and watch the silhouette of him that is left as an uncomfortable shadow in the playing space as Kenrecks again adjusting his posture, showing us what we by this point have learned to recognize as his silhouette, watching Trina and just staring at her. Moments later, we learn that Trina is, I think, 14 years old. And though the people of the town offer deliberately little resistance when Ken begins grooming her because they think that this may placate him, in fact it only makes the situation worse. He becomes more volatile towards the other locals, including Trina's family, as well as anyone else who is good natured enough to want to try and help her situation. Because what he now has is an additional Weakness and a vulnerability. Joshua Desaro is the designer of the lighting and video elements that I began to speak about there. And lighting and sound are both so extraordinarily utilized throughout this production. There are a bunch of different handheld microphones that are used for voice editing effects. We hear different sound effects on those, but also they're just used to represent different things. At one moment, Jack Holden is arresting himself at the end of a handheld microphone. At another, these microphone stands become a crowd of people that, you know, try as he might, he can't actually render himself on stage. So we see the scale of them, we see the judgment of them as represented by inwardly facing microphones on microphone stands. That's an aspect of Ed Stamboullian's brilliant direction, which keeps Jack flying around the playing space. And what you have to assume at this point is remarkable muscle memory because it's so smooth, the way that he transitions between each character that he is portraying. And he's like box stepping and square dancing around set pieces as he's moving them between lines of dialogue as we're going in and out of music. One of the most overtly theatrical characters that he portrays in a real demonstration of showmanship is Kenreck's scheming lawyer, Richard McFadden, whose skill at poking at a small perforation of technicality until it becomes a gaping, damaging hole in the case of the prosecution is partnered well by Ken Rex's campaign of intimidation and bullying against anyone who plans to testify against him. That being the explanation that we are given for how he has been able to commit so many crimes with so few convictions. With Richard McFadden's playful theme song punctuated by whip sound effects, it's truly a total, all you can eat buffet is this show. At one point we're trying to clap responses back to percussive rhythms in a barn dance. At another, we are silently stunned as Jack Holden manages to perpetrate an incredibly tense confrontation with. With himself. I've seen so many plays and recently that haven't been able to create a legitimate sense of tension or who have had to cheat. This calls itself a thriller, and it deserves to wholeheartedly, because it is blood pumping intensity established by a single performer threatening himself, having a standoff with himself. And the fact that I am sat there as a grown adult looking at this man and feeling terrified that, you know, I'm like, I don't want him to shoot himself in this standoff that he's having with himself. Or later on, like questioning in the great moral dilemma that eventually emerges. Whether I agree with his perspective on whether he was right to kill himself, or whether I feel sad for the version of him that is mourning the him that he was a minute ago.
- [15:29]
Martha Stewart
I'm Martha Stewart and I believe the best gifts are not only beautiful, but useful every single day. And Lenox has brought timeless beauty and lasting quality to our tables for generations, and their Lenox Spice Village is the perfect holiday gift for someone you love or for yourself. Spice Village transforms everyday spices into inspired memories filled with warmth and joy all year long. Give a gift that lasts beyond the holidays. Discover the collection@lenox.com SpiceVillage VRBO's last minute.
- [16:05]
Micky Jo Theatre Critic
Deals make chasing fresh mountain powder incredibly easy. With thousands of homes close to the slopes, you can get epic pow freshies first tracks and more. Find Last minute deals with the Last Minute filter on the app. Book a private vacation rental now@vrbo.com like it's it's mad. And there are triumphant moments that are still and pared back and sort of uncomfortably silent. In contrast, there is a scene that takes place in a bar where the wrong thing is said and somebody gets threatened. And this scene is comic and gets big laughs all the way. Until it doesn't. I love writing like that, where it's clear what's going to happen and it's still funny until it's not. And you feel this quality of the air slowly disappearing out of the room. Then you have sequences like the end of Act 1, this arrest via a wired handheld microphone that I told you about. And while that's taking place, smoke is filling the stage, blue lighting is flashing. We are hearing power chords on an electric guitar. It's intense. It's heavy metal theater. And like I said, it's just cool in the way that so few shows are objectively cool. I normally save my recommendations until the very end of these reviews, but this, because it's like that, because it has that kind of equality, is a great theatre show to take people who don't think they like theatre whatsoever to go and see if you like those kind of Netflix documentaries. Obviously, if you love true crime, but if you like anything that is that kind of gripping and engaging, this is everything that maybe you don't think theatre normally is, but I urge you to go and find out. Now, as we head into the second act, I think that's actually when the direction gets even stronger and you have to pull out a few more tricks. What I loved about Cruise, what I love about this is the variety in staging. I've seen and sort of witnessed a lot of great pieces of theatrical storytelling when the writing is so good and the performance is so good that someone can just sit there. I guess something like Fleabag when it was on stage, was a little more akin to that. But I also love when a performer has a playground like this to be able to offer us versatility in the means of storytelling. And we go back to a place of comedy as a trial is taking place and because Jack is having to play defense and prosecution is like racing up and down steps and like waiting for his own response, realizing he's not there to give it running back down, gets a big laugh. But then these moments of blinding, blistering tension when there's this one set piece which is just a door frame with like lighting strips on it, which he lowers down onto its side in order to have himself framed by the lighting in a more uncomfortable, intense state. And all of these microphones and all of these cables on all of these stands becoming a big part of the visual identity of the piece as well. And in the first act, they've already meant so much. One microphone is the phone into which a terrified 911 call is placed. Another is the actual microphone with which Trina sings the Star Spangled Banner. Another is the voice of the local radio DJ talking about the events of the town and the consciousness of the people of the town as it develops. But where these are more literal interpretations of things that are sung or spoken into or on other occasions, just ways of making Jack's voice sound more immediate and intense so we can hear the whispering quality of it in this sort of goosebump inducing way. Like I said, as we go into the second act, the microphone stands themselves come to represent the scale of characters in a moment of the story that really necessitates that that would be very hard to otherwise depict in a solo version. Now, having done my best to avoid major spoilers for the production thus far, there will be spoilers about the ending and what happens. It's an old, perhaps even famous true crime case, so you may know already the details of why it's novel to begin with. If you don't want to know, then skip right ahead to the final section of.
- [20:01]
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- [21:00]
Martha Stewart
The holidays are about giving something truly special. I'm Martha Stewart and I believe the best gifts aren't just beautiful, they're useful every single day. Lennox has brought timeless beauty and lasting quality to our tables for generations, and their Lenox Spice Village is the perfect holiday gift for someone you love or for yourself. It's more than a spice rack. It's a charming collection of hand painted houses that turn ordinary spices into extraordinary experiences. Imagine cinnamon from a tiny Victorian cottage or oregano from a pastel townhouse. Suddenly, a simple meal becomes a moment to savor. Because spices can be more than ingredients, they can inspire memories, warmth and joy all year long. Give a gift that lasts beyond the holidays. Discover the collection@lenox.com SpiceVillage.
- [22:00]
Micky Jo Theatre Critic
This review. But it is a really thrilling ending and one which goes some of the way towards Mitt Mitigating the biggest question I have always had about this piece, which is why now? What is the relevance of it? What is it saying to us right now other than, you know, these creative collaborators finding out about it and wanting to tell this story in a way that is cool and pulse raising and engaging. And theatre can be all of those things. But Cruise, when Jack performed that coming out of the closures of the Pandemic, was also prescient and current in a way that sort of made it feel inescapably topical and relatable. And this, I think, I think could stick the landing with just the slightest degree more clarity when it comes to delivering a message about community and consciousness. Because what we're building towards here is this Mob justice style finale, this Murder on the Orient Express esque ending in which the true crime to be solved, as we learned at the end of the first act, is not one that has been perpetrated by Ken Rex, although he does. He does a lot of crime in it, is one that has been brought against him. He has been murdered in a fashion familiar of Bonnie and Clyde on the front seat of his pickup truck, shot multiple times with allegedly dozens of witnesses. As he is surrounded by people of the town who have lost faith in the legal process, being able to put him away and keep them safe, and who have taken it upon themselves to find justice, or who have perverted the course of justice. It's very open to interpretation about whether or not they did the right thing. The right thing in truest sense, the right thing for themselves, for Trina, his morning wife, even, who does not see it that way. And that, I also think, gives it an awful lot of theatrical license, this Murder on the Orient Express kind of conclusion. But I do still wonder if, beyond everything it's already achieving in terms of just gripping, dynamic storytelling and entertainment and transporting and transfixing us, whether it could also leave us with something really impactful and meaningful about society and the way that we move through society and the way that people come together in the face of challenges like this. Because the really fascinating upshot of the whole thing, and perhaps the most intriguing angle of the entire case, is that the murder officially remains unsolved and that none of the townspeople have admitted to witnessing this, despite there allegedly being a crowd of like 50 or 60. This is a piece of information that we are told in the end, in the context of the conclusion of the story for a couple of individual characters. We perhaps lose the sense of the town and of community in the final reflection. And I think there's so much there of real interest that could perhaps be explored just the tiniest bit more. At the same time, I love that they're committed. Silent silence takes hold in the play and we don't hear from those characters thereafter. And we see the unplugging of microphones at these stands to represent that that is also a great ending to a really great piece of theatre. So that has been my review of Kenreck's at the other Palace Theatre. Shows like this don't come around all that often. This is unique and exciting and engaging and. And compelling. It is a true crime thriller on stage. It is legitimately intimidating. It is full of character. It is some of the most impressive creative work happening in front of you in real time that you are going to see. It's a great way to really delight in a thriving creative collaboration. But beyond how pretentious I make this sound like I said at the start, it is just so cool. It is cool in a way that theatre often doesn't necessarily know how to be. A lot of theatre is smart and a lot of theatre is affecting, but this is cool and exciting. It will make your heart beat faster. It will make the hairs on your arms stand up. Take people to go and see this who don't think they like theatre and convert them for life. Because this, and I have truly run out of any other adjectives, is just cool. Go and check it out for yourselves at the other Palace Theatre in London. If you have already, I would love to know what you thought. Let us know in the comments section down below. And in the meantime, if you enjoyed listening to my review and you would like to hear more of them about other shows in the West End and on Broadway, make sure to subscribe right here on YouTube or go follow me on podcast platforms. In the meantime, I hope 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.
- [26:55]
Martha Stewart
Subscribe Comment.
- [26:58]
Micky Jo Theatre Critic
El Programa Nacional de Becas a ser de McDonald's a beneficiado mas de vieciciete Miles.
- [27:29]
Martha Stewart
The holidays are about giving something truly special. I'm Martha Stewart and I believe the best gifts aren't just beautiful, they're useful every single day. Lenox has brought timeless beauty and lasting quality to our tables for generations, and their Lenox Spice Village is the perfect holiday gift. Gift for someone you love or for yourself. It's more than a spice rack. It's a charming collection of hand painted houses that turn ordinary spices into extraordinary experiences. Imagine cinnamon from a tiny Victorian cottage or oregano from a pastel townhouse. Suddenly, a simple meal becomes a moment to savor. Because spices can be more than ingredients, they can inspire memories, warmth and joy all year long. Give a gift that lasts beyond the holidays. Discover the collection@lenox.com SpiceVillage what are you.
- [28:27]
Micky Jo Theatre Critic
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