Gary Naylor

The emotional weight of the play is, in another surprise for me, carried by the two women in his life, his new wife Amy and his ex-lover, Mrs Ramirez. Denise Gough is wonderful as Mrs Kane, a title she disowns so swiftly after its acquisition. She skilfully manages the transition from a giddy newlywed instantly plunged into the kind of ethical question that is best left to an ethics seminar, but this time with the stakes sky-high. It is the very presence of such strong convictions that sends the shiver down our backs, Gough pressing on those buttons without ever indulging in anachronistic histrionics.

Sean Hayes, Tony Award in stowage, crosses The Atlantic to reprise his role as Levant and it’s hard to overstate just how good he is, a one-man rebuttal for the disappointments many have felt paying top dollar for big Hollywood names in the West End. He simply inhabits the part. There’s the desperate vulnerability of the addict, the ticks that speak of a roiling mind, the ruthless exploitation of the decency of others. But there’s also the speed of the wit, the grudging willingness to do the right thing, the sheer chutzpah of the man. Most of all, and this elevates the performance to the very best of any I’ve seen, there’s the charisma - Levant’s and Hayes’ - that bounces around this large house like a laser show.

Zegler will dominate the headlines and she deserves the accolades and the tumultuous applause on opening night because she sings really well. She also emotes with a smoldering, crowdpleasing intensity. But the show’s concept does not allow her to act. We simply never really discover who EVITA is, what power she held over men, Perón in particular, and what price she paid psychologically, although we do get a Pucciniesque demise. All she has to work with are the songs and three costumes and she’s fighting music mixed far too loud far too often. She has no chance of ever developing a rounded, nuanced Eva.

Like police cover-ups, social workers' priorities and the mental health crisis of Boomer men caught on the wrong side of postindustrialism, it’s alluded to but not examined in a production that resurrects a man only to bury him again 100 minutes later, having said far less than it might have. And, more pertinently, far less than it should have.

These three character studies show us the price the men paid for their success, but they also show us how they did it, genius, as ever, one part God-given alchemy and two parts bloody hard work. The pacy 80 minutes is leavened by some of their greatest hits, the punchlines, the sketches and the songs that live forever in the hearts of those who saw them. Unlike so many biopics these days, we’re never in any doubt as to what made these men what they were, the focus never straying to wives, neuroses or an overlay of 21st century hot-button issues.

Coogan’s energy is astonishing, on stage more or less the whole time, save the (very) quick changes required to appear and reappear in four roles, he draws on every element of his comic heritage from voices, to pratfalls, to character work, to farce. If the script needs a fistful of clunky devices to get him into the shadowy backdrop only to have him return swiftly as somebody else, it’s worth it for the platform it gives for his virtuosity.

Rob Drummond’s new play, Pins and Needles, is a searing indictment of… well, something, I’m just not sure what. And that is, of course, its strength, as it is actually, in heavy disguise, not an indictment of anything, but a celebration of complication. There’s a bit of meta stuff to get through first which, although it has more justification in this script than in most, its irritation still outweighs its cleverness, It’s becoming the theatre gimmick of 2024 taking over from the near ubiquitous onstage handheld camera of 2023.  

A flawed play then, but one that at least tries to address thorny key issues of the day in politics and art. Will it, as the best theatre should, change minds or, if that is too much to ask, at least challenge mindsets? That question is subjective and in the eye of the beholder, but I doubt anyone seeing the play will turn on the radio the next morning to hear of more carnage in Gaza or Southern Lebanon and form a new view on its origins or its potential outcomes. Nor do I believe anyone will see Matilda, Charlie or James any differently, nor even the infamous Witches either. Maybe a parent or two might offset the thirst many kids develop for Dahl with some of Charles M ‘Sparky’ Schulz’s Peanuts cartoons. And that would be a good thing.

In many ways, this might be exactly the show a too often overly cautious West End needs right now and the energy in the house was good evidence for that conclusion. But some just won’t make the individual connection, they won’t see enough to invest in Why Am I So Single’s Oliver and Nancy the way they did in Kinky Boots’ Lola and Charlie, to take one example. But that was 12 years ago, and time waits for no man, no woman, no non-binary person. Least of all for Marlow and Moss, who are moving mainstream theatre on fast-forward again.

Symposiums (or symposia, as the Pedants’ Pedant, Henry, would no doubt instantly inform me from beneath his half-hearted mullet) are the places to explore ideas about writing. Stages should be reserved for characters we believe in, in whom we can invest hopes and fears, maybe even grow to like - after all, we’re lumped together for two and a half hours, so let’s get along hey? Such thoughts filled my head, as the play I witnessed seemed barely worthy of praise, never mind the avalanche of plaudits that have come its way since its premiere 42 years ago and consequent to its many revivals since. Had I missed something? In pooh-poohing the assessments of so many fine judges, was I just being a bear of very little brain? Or had this soapy tale (albeit with longer words, but almost as much shouting) merely outlived its utility? Probably a bit of all three.

There isn’t much set piece dancing in the show, but director, Nick Winston, makes excellent use of a couple of surprising moments. Kaori’s playing is delivered by a shadow violinist (Akiko Ishikawa) while the girl disappears, underlining how music can transform human beings. None more so than when Kosei goes all in with his classical piano playing, dissing Vladimir Horowitz as a teen would and absolutely nailing Rachmaninoff, Zheng Xi Yong earning one of what will be many showstopping ovations, electrifying the house and providing an unforgettable moment.

Stephanie J Block has 21 years experience on Broadway and, appropriately, gave it both barrels as Lilli Vanessi, the divorced wife of Dunbar’s actor-producer Fred Graham, and Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew, the play that was being put up on the other side of the scenery by our troupe of touring players. Life was soon imitating art, as Lilli rained blows, verbal and physical, on the slithering Fred (Petruchio, natch) - but you kinda knew they were the only people who could stand each others’ presence.