‘Laughing Boy’ Jermyn Street Theatre – Review
Outstanding, put simply. Book. Go, see it. Five stars.
Or you can read the rest of this, and a few other reviews, linked below. And find it’s sold out. Up to you.
Stella Powell-Jones and David Doyle continue to raise the bar, already set high for Jermyn Street Theatre by Tom Littler (late of this parish and now at The Orange Tree), by following Roy Williams’ The Lonely Londoners (a sure fire winner in upcoming awards season) with Stephen Unwin’s Laughing Boy.
Why does the little guy have to fight for answers when things go wrong? Always. Contaminated blood. Post Office. PPE. Connor Sparrowhawk. And it’s always those in authority that do the covering up. Always. Followed by an enquiry. And recommendations, ignored of course.
Always.
Anyway.
This is the frankly harrowing, sometimes funny, but usually angermaking (as per Mr Bates and the hateful Post Office) pursuit of answers for the completely unnecessary death of Connor Sparrowhawk while in the care of Southern Health Trust in 2013.
And what a way to begin the show (if that’s the right word for the experience). The cast wander about the stage, chatting to the audience and each other. Dr Sara Ryan (Janie Dee) enters as the lights dim and the audience hush. And Connor (Alfie Friedman) asks,
‘Am I dead, Mum?’
We see Connor’s life from baby to teen, to an 18 year old adult. We meet the people he met, the people his mother and siblings met as he grew up: his love of London buses, of trucks, of his mum and David Bowie and his brother and sisters in his joyous, difficult world. And we meet the ‘carers’ who, untrained, indifferent and ignorant of what they should have been most assured, allowed Connor to die, to drown, succumbing to epilepsy, unsupervised in his bath. And then, as with all such inconvenience, we watch those same people try to cover it up.
So began the long quest for an inquest, for truth, for answers in the face of lies, obfuscation and lawyers.
OK, so the play isn’t perfect. Tell me one that is. References are made to future resolutions which then, in a ‘cutting room floor’ sort of way, don’t appear – but so what.
This is someone’s life.
It could be yours.
Heck – we all end up on the cutting room floor.
The actors grab the material and live it before us. They really laugh, they really cry. Who can blame them? It’s a true story.
And you know something? The most shocking part of the whole thing flits past in seconds. Cyclorama style images of others who have died at the hands of similar people over recent years, perhaps without the advocate, without the team of friends and helpers to tell their stories and seek their own justice.
Why does this keep happening?
After all, is it not the first responsibility of government in a democratic society to protect and safeguard the lives of its citizens, rather than obfuscate, prevaricate and delay? Surely, that’s where the public interest lies, essential for the preservation of democracy. Oh, just me?
Sorry.
Perhaps that’s why, at the show after-party, the most unlikely of people (the wonderful, private individuals who help fund JST in the absence of arts funding for such shows) were muttering ‘this bloody government can’t leave soon enough,’ albeit hoping that no replacement could be as bad.
It probably can.
But, as usual, I digress.
If you want to visit actors and a theatre punching so far above their weight as to defy gravity, get booking. And if you like punching above your weight, there’s plenty of relaxed performances to enjoy too.
Just don’t punch anyone.
Please.
by Chris Parkinson
Evening Standard review
The Daily Telegraph review
The Guardian review
2 Responses to ‘Laughing Boy’ Jermyn Street Theatre – Review