Mickey Jo (0:00)

Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you're listening on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I'm a professional theatre critic here on social media. This very evening I was invited to go and see a new play called Second Best over at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, London, United Kingdom. I've gone too far with this. I don't know where I'm heading. This is auspicious because it marks the theatrical stage debut of, of Asa Butterfield, better known for his work on screen since an early age. That's pertinent. We're going to circle back to that one. Now, originally I was planning to do this as a much shorter review over on my Instagram and TikTok, where you can also follow me if you're curious. Ickyjotheater. But in watching it, I discovered, slightly to my surprise, there's a little more to say about this one than I had anticipated. Now, it has a fascinating premise, which we'll talk about in due course, made all the more intriguing in this particular production by a piece of hugely metatheatrical casting. Now, it's been directed by Michael Longhurst, the play has been written by Barney Norris, it's an adaptation of the novel written by David Fuanchinou. I'm so sorry, David, if that's not how I'm pronouncing your name. But it essentially conceives the idea that there was this fictional runner up to the role of Harry Potter on screen, which of course went to Daniel Radcliffe. I mean, in real life there was one, but that is, that is not the subject of this. This is an imagined protagonist who at the time that we are meeting him at the beginning of the play, is entering into a sort of an early midlife crisis. He is anticipating the birth of his first child and the anticip is stirring many memories from his past. And really it's the relationship with his parents which is being unearthed. Many adolescent memories adjacent to the trauma surrounding losing out on the role of Harry Potter. Anyway, we're going to be talking about this play today. If anyone has been lucky enough to see this already or perhaps read the book, please comment down below with your thoughts about Second best and Asa Butterfield's performance in his stage debut. So, as mentioned, we follow the character of Martin. His partner is pregnant. They're going in for a three month scan and he is visibly anxious, anxious about this. But when in the blink of an eye, he is the one in a hospital bed being comforted by his partner in this unexpected role reversal. Because it transpires he has fainted during the procedure and hit his head on the bed, we come to find out that this is attached to the unearthing of much of his childhood trauma, the greater details of which we are spoon fed over the expositional stage of the play. It is an interesting premise, especially for a British audience, especially for a British audience at this time of my particular age range, who really grew up with these books. And before we go any further, because we're talking about the Harry Potter world here, I do want to clarify where I stand about this because, you know, it affected my enjoyment of the play. And I've spoken quite recently on here about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which of course is still running in London and is being produced globally, and the fact that I don't even like talking about it because I don't want to advertise it. My distaste for Harry Potter has grown to such a point that I am now sort of actively uncomfortable when I see it, when I encounter it, certainly when it is so heavily mentioned in a play. That'd be being said even after the fact. I saw a pretty great play a few years ago, the Vault Festival called Dumbledore is so Gay, which went much of the way to try and reclaim the idea and the magic and the world of Harry Potter for a trans inclusive, queer audience. But what I wanted to say about this is that I, like much of my generation, really, truly grew up with these books. With the release of these books. I mean, I'm wearing my glasses that I actually wear during this review to help to convey to you, you may see it, how many World Book Days. That's a thing in the uk. I two dressed as Harry Potter. Spoiler alert. That's also just a very lazy World Book Day costume because guess what? You wear school uniform and your mum draws like a scar on your forehead and you wear your own actual glasses and you put a little bit of tape around the middle. My hair was messier then. I hadn't discovered product. But it was a really big part of my childhood and it was a huge part of the nation's cultural consciousness. It still is. It is enduringly massive. And that is something that this play is able to riff on and derive humor from is effortlessly. Because the slightest connotation, the slightest awkward link, all of the comedy about this character as a child losing out in this role and then attempting to avoid the franchise for the rest of his life and just, you know, miserably finding connections to it everywhere he turned. Whether it's familiarity with the initials, other things starting with hp, whether it's, you know, Daniel Radcliffe himself, the realization that after his fall he might develop a scar on his forehead. And while he was young, when the films were coming out, every magazine, every cinema, everywhere, Daniel Radcliffe and the Harry Potter films. Inescapable. It still is. And having personally divorced myself from any positive emotional connection to the books, to the films, to the franchise, the experience of this and, you know, remembering what that was like and remembering any fondness that there may have been for it is not dissimilar to unexpectedly running into an ex and then having to spend the evening in the same place. Like, like there's, there's no extraordinary animosity, but it's. It's definitely weird. Anyway, now that I'm just about done making this about me, let me tell you a little bit more about this play. Because it is also, and I ought to have mentioned this, a one act monologue. It runs for about 80 minutes and it does the reasonably typical thing structurally, where we begin in a certain recent circumstance and then in order to explain that, he talks about certain events from the past. He talks about the moment when he first met his partner at a party that we will circle back to at the end of the thing. He talks about different events from across the years of his childhood and we eventually settle into a stronger narrative flowing through the years of his past and we start to jump around a little bit less, but we find ourselves more firmly rooted in the past. It's like he's digging at his own consciousness and he finds himself barreling down one particular tunnel a little bit like a therapy session, honestly. And the tone follows because at the beginning it's more comedic, it's more light hearted, there's like self deprecating humor and sarcasm and whatnot. But as we truly venture into this place of greater angst and trauma, it takes a turn for the heavy. And without wanting to spoil the details of it for you, it's not really about Harry Potter. Like without that interesting element to it, I don't know if it would be quite as compelling. But really what this is is a piece about his childhood, about his relationship with his parents who had divorced prior to him even auditioning as a 1011 year old for the film franchise. His father working in film props that having been a gateway that this story uses to justify him getting the audition in the first place. His mother having moved back to France where she came from. A detail which I think only exists so that we can make some sort of a comparison to the Mona Lisa. Towards the end of the thing, he ends up working in the Louvre. Excuse me, Louvre. And British audiences, certainly those born after the Second World War and before the new millennium, will definitely find a lot of this relatable, definitely culturally relatable. I also like the way it speaks to the experience of, you know, young men who are anticipating becoming fathers for the first time. I feel like that's not ground which is trodden in a lot of contemporary plays. And if it is, it's often talking about something different. It's often talking about legacy and, like, their own relationship with their father, which this touches on. But it's also bigger than that because it also feels like a young man approaching or even around 30 years old, who is entirely of the age to be a parent for the first time. But in this generation now, I mean, myself included, a lot of people around 30 who don't feel anywhere near old enough to be taking care of another human being. And perhaps it's always felt that way, and we're just, you know, experiencing it in media in a different way. Maybe when you hit that age, it feels different, maybe it always has. But it's a pretty meaningful exploration of him contending with his own ptsd, really, with his own historic trauma in anticipation of parenthood and this big moment where his life is going to change. Whether that comes to a solid enough conclusion about why it is that he's suddenly thinking about all of this, I'm not convinced. Like, we find a neat enough ribbon to tie the whole thing up in, but it's only a reasonably insubstantial realization and fulfillment he finds it's. It's a good enough answer, but it doesn't really speak to specifically why this suddenly was flaring up for him again after he thought, you know, that he put all of this to bed years before. And in a similar vein, another issue that I sort of anticipated having with this play is. I don't know what it's necessarily trying to articulate or what it necessarily accomplishes saying, beyond talking about this one individual's relationship with his parents and his own childhood and contending with that and dealing with that and resolving it. I don't know how much this can tell us. I don't know what this can say to people who didn't nearly get cast as Harry Potter as a child. That's also where a lot of the most interesting elements of it lie, because we've seen before in tv, in film, on stage, a Lot of examples of young people going through trauma and dealing with a certain amount of angst and grief. Perhaps that is not untrodden ground. Whereas it's pretty revelatory to be talking about this hugely successful film franchise and imagining as an offshoot of its notoriety and success. What if there was this person out there who, for years afterwards was struggling with just narrowly missing out on getting cast in it, on his life changing because of it? And there's so many things that you could imagine as a result of that. I'm not sure we spend nearly enough time in that casting process and really unpicking everything that he went through as a result of it. The whole thing plays out pretty quickly, that actual chapter of his memories. But even faster is his attempt to resolve it. He is so eager to put the whole thing to bed that he never really addresses it or unpacks it, which, of course, becomes a problem for him down the road, emotionally and mentally. But it also becomes a problem for us dramaturgically, because I think the audience really want to hear more about that. And in terms of the way that the play is being talked about and being marketed, it's a big hook, potentially, for many people in the audience, as is, of course, the casting of Asa Butterfield. Now, I described this as a bit of a metatheatrical idea because Asa, like I said, making his stage debut, is best known to us for his work on screen, in particular to many people for his fairly prolific work as a brilliant child actor. Now, I believe he's a little bit younger than Daniel Radcliffe. I think he's about my age. But I had the opportunity to briefly chat to him and director Michael Longhurst in the rehearsal room a couple of weeks ago, where Michael spoke about the ability, because of his casting, to sort of suspend that, not even disbelief, but that knowledge, and muse on the idea that Asa Butterfield might have been in contention to be Harry Potter. And not only that, but you can see it as well. In fact, he does a Daniel Radcliffe impression at one point during the play, which is hysterical funny. Not an impression of Harry Potter the character, but an impression of Daniel Radcliffe, who I don't think I've ever seen spoofed before and who I don't think of as being someone whose mannerisms and voice type are big enough to parody, but he did a really great job. Now he is, I would say, demonstrably a screen actor. Riverside Studios is not a massive venue. In fact, it used to be entirely a TV recording studio. Some rooms of it still are. But Certainly in terms of his vocal delivery, in terms of how animated he is and the expressions, it does feel very much like he's still delivering for screen rather than a theatrical setting. Were this to transfer to a bigger West End theater, I'm not sure it would really reach every part of the auditorium. The. The degree to which he's amplified at the beginning sort of initially took me aback. I got used to it, as you would with one voice for 80 minutes. I also at times got the slightly itching feeling that his own natural accent and delivery might be that little bit too inexpressive for a full length theatrical monologue where he's not playing a vast array of characters. But amusingly, the pitch and the tone of his voice as well as his accent is not at all dissimilar to my own. So if you can listen to me talk about theater for a long time, you can probably listen to this man telling a story. Maybe that's why I struggled with it a little bit. Maybe it was like looking in a mirror where I have an unborn child and a goatee. I do think that as you tune into his performance, you get the natural comedy. You get an extraordinary sincerity and a depth. And he is really at his best when he is portraying other characters. This isn't something which happens all that often, but it's a really winning moment when it does. I also think there are so many moments of stillness and reflection that he really delivers best. There's a lot of physical business that he has to do with moving things around and like the slightest moment of illusion. And a couple of clever things involving a video camera on stage that conveys a live feed to a slightly nostalgic, like a 20 year old television. And where we've seen many dynamic comic actors come alive in those moments of movement and those moments of, you know, more direct involvement with the audience. He does turn the camera on us at one point. Those parts feel a little further from his fingertips than the more solemn and solitary stuff, which he does very well. You could imagine he'd be very good in Chekhov. Like, it's exciting to see him do a brand new contemporary play because this is not something that happens often with celebrities. Often when screen stars come to the stage, they're doing Shakespeare or they're doing classics. It's nice to see, you know, new playwrights and new works having this opportunity and being elevated by name casting. It's also, and I really want to underline this, a hell of a thing to make your stage debut in a one person show. Like to be arriving on the stage and to be in a set that physically doesn't have wings. The only way that he can enter or exit this space is by leaping off of the stage and exiting out of the. The auditorium exit. Like that's what he had to do during the curtain call. He also. And we'll speak about the set design momentarily because this is going to leave you intrigued at one point is elevated, I'd say around 15ft above the stage. Having climbed up there on a fairly flimsy looking ladder himself. He is pushing around these big set pieces and there are several curiosities about this set, but it is for the most part a very sort of oppressively empty, large white box without a front. It has been designed by Fly Davis with lighting designed by Paulie Constable. There is some forward lighting. There is also overhead lighting. We move between these cooler and warmer tones with a couple of moments of color flash to take us to a completely abstract place. And initially it's sort of an unidentifiably strange set of props that surround him in this almost empty space. What you come to realize is that it's essentially an art gallery. I told you that he ends up working in the Louvre. And this is sort of the museum of his mind. Some memories, more recent, some things from the past, some things locked away, some things, you know, suspended in harder to reach places, pushed to the back corners of his mind, literally raised up to the higher corners of this set. There's this really eerie visual of falling black clumps of dust, these grains falling down from these grates in the ceiling, which he invokes as he talks about unearthing these recollections and sort of like brushing the dust off of them. And that being, I don't know, I guess a representative of the sadness and the pain that is associated with that action. Those really traumatizing details about a circumstance which you've perhaps been able to repress immediately. At the beginning, you can see that there are a bunch of crisp packets on one side which have fallen from a display. Once it really comes into focus dramatically, the meaning of this. It's staggeringly painful. And Michael Longhurst has put together this very deliberate and very visually meaningful staging where throughout the thing, he is truly assembling and curating this collection of memories which visually represent how he got to this place. And he is finding order from that. And he is, you know, doing an audit of it for himself as well. He is going through the. The messier parts of his mind and trying to pull into focus. What is the most important thing which eventually we bring into perspective. And so then I enjoyed Second Best. I thought this was a really confident debut from Asa Butterfield. I would be very intrigued to see what he does in an ensemble company. I hope that we see him on stage again later, soon. I do think it's a really brilliant piece of casting for elevating certain parts of this story. I do think that that particular element within the plot about the. The Harry Potter of it all and the casting as a child of it all is what makes this particularly interesting. And I think, you know, I think this has the capability to speak to young men, to speak to new fathers or young men who are anticipating becoming fathers. Really, personally, like I said, it finds tremendous cultural recognition in this audience. There was so much recognition. There was a lot of laughter. There was a lot of anticipatory laughter. Things didn't even really need to be said. We all understood what was being invoked, the parallels which were being drawn. Everyone was sort of thinking on the same page. It's that thing of when you really fixate on something in childhood, it becomes so ingrained into the consciousness that they really don't have to do much to take us to that place and land that joke. I do think that it has the capability to say something a little more transcendent, something a little bit more meaningful. But it's. It's a really satisfying monologue piece. It's a very enjoyable evening at the theater. And I think a lot of people don't even necessarily know about the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith or don't necessarily know that this is happening. So feel free to go and check it out. I have scanned through the program and from, from what I can tell, JK Rowling is not making money off of this, which is why I can be at peace telling you to go and see it. Go and check it out if this sounds interesting to you. And as always, comment down below if you have seen it already or if you're seeing it after I have shared this review and please let me know what you think. In the meantime, thank you for listening to this review. Stay tuned for many more coming very soon. I want to spend more time on here talking about plays, talking about smaller productions. So make sure you are following me on podcast platforms or subscribed right here on YouTube so you don't miss those coming very soon. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For ten more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theater. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.