The Beast's Pen

Photo: Marc Brenner

Writer: Neil Simon

Director: John Benjamin Hickey

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With breathtaking view across Central Park, the Plaza Hotel has come to symbolise the height of Manhattan luxury and elegance. Therefore, it seems fitting that this revival of Neil Simon’s 1968 play set there should be staged at a theatre annexed to the Savoy, one of London’s equivalent locations. The production arrives with ticket that could just be affordable for paying guests at these hotels and the big question is whether or not the show matches their five-star ratings.

Simon was the unchallenged King of Broadway comedy in the 1960s and 1970s, but his success in the West End has been less consistent. Presumably hoping to transform the late writer’s fortunes on this side of the Atlantic, director John Benjamin Hickey’s production boasts the star casting of real-life married couple Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker and, playing three roles each, they are certainly made to work their shifts.

Set designer John Lee Beatty’s gleaming representation of Suite 719 at the Plaza draws gasps from the audience as the curtain rises and it also sends out an early message that this will be an utterly conventional staging of the play, or rather the three separate plays that have only the setting in common.

Visitor from Mamaroneck is the first and longest of the segments. Sam and Karen Nash, having moved into the hotel temporarily while their home is being redecorated, are celebrating their 23rd or 24th wedding anniversary in the same suite where they spent their honeymoon, or maybe in the one below it. Parker excels here as the scatterbrain, attention-seeking wife and mother who is losing her grip on both roles, fumbling around to find ways to respond to her husband’s supposed infidelity with his secretary. Broderick has little to do but return the volleys fired at Sam and look as glum as if this is Ferris Bueller’s off day. The jousting runs out of steam midway, needing Hickey to inject more pace and energy to enliven the comic interplay and compensate for the absence of topicality in the social and cultural references..

Visitor from Hollywood is an odd little snack, sandwiched between two main courses. Broderick is Jesse Kiplinger, a lecherous three-times divorced film producer who invites a married woman, Muriel Tate (Parker) to the suite, hoping to re-light a flame from 17 years earlier. Muriel knows why she is there, but puts up token resistance before becoming intoxicated by Jesse’s name-dropping and the thought that she is one degree of separation from Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, etc. This is a lightweight, only mildly amusing seduction comedy from the pre-Harvey Weinstein age and, looked at from a modern perspective, it makes rather discomforting viewing.

In true Broadway tradition, Simon leaves the best till last. The Visitor from Forest Hills sees Roy and Norma Hubley checking in for the wedding of their daughter. Their problem is that, with the ceremony ready to start, daughter has locked herself in the bathroom. Simon now switches to a broader style of comedy, including slapstick, which suits Broderick perfectly. He milks the laughs as the beleaguered Roy, frantically counting the mounting cost of the reception downstairs. Parker is also hilarious as the mother fussing over the details of her own wedding outfit while overlooking the fact that there could be no wedding at which she can display it.

Overall, this revival is a mixed bag with a glittering exterior. It is lavish, starry and it oozes class, but it also carries several reminders that all that glitters is not gold.

Performance date: 25 January 2024

Photo: Mark Douet

Writer: Ins Choi

Director: Esther Jun

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Ins Choi’s one-act play, Kim’s Convenience, first seem in Toronto in 2011, has already spawned a Netflix series and it now arrives in North London trailed by high expectations. In a narrow sense, this is a routine family comedy centred around a bullying patriarch, but, judged in its wider context, the play can be seen as an affectionate tribute to the positive contribution made by Asian immigrants to Canadian society.

Director Esther Jun’s spirited revival sees the writer himself taking on the role of Mr Kim (known as “Appa”), the owner of a small community store in a rapidly changing area of Toronto. Walmart is threatening to move in and Kim receives an offer to sell up, but he is set on keeping the store in his family and continuing Korean traditions. Choi writes amusingly but powerfully about struggles to preserve heritage and identity in a world of continuous change.

Kim is obsessed with Korean history and harbours long-standing  resentments, particularly against the Japanese. He is bombastic and intransigent, prepared even to use violent coercion to get his own way.

This bigoted monster at times looks like a modern-day Alf Garnet and, as it should, the role fits Choi like a glove. It could come as a surprise to some that we are still allowed to laugh at such an outrageous character in these days of political correctness. Yet laugh most of us will.

The family consists of Kim’s wife, Umma (Namju Go), his daughter, Janet (Jennifer Kim) and an estranged son, Jung (Brian Law). Kim is determined that Janet will take over the store, but she refuses, being more interested in pursuing a local policeman, Alex (Miles Mitchell). Set designer Mona Camille makes sure that the shelves are fully stocked and, although the play is far from being a world beater, there is absolutely nothing to dislike in its entire 80-minute running time.

Choi’s comedy sticks to its predictable formula right through, unsubtle and occasionally raucous, but, when the resolution arrives, it is underplayed so delicately that it becomes genuinely touching.

Performance date: 12 January 2024

Photo: Douglas Armoir

Composers: Joel Goodman and Jan Osborne

Bool: Joan Greening

Director: Jane Miles

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Anyone fortunate enough to be in possession of a £50 note could look at the proud face that adorns it, that of Alan Turing, and ponder over the many ironies of an extraordinary life that journeyed from hero to zero and then, posthumously, back to hero. This 80-minute show delivers exactly what the title promises and charts the rise and fall of the man who contributed massively to his country’s victory in World War II and, along the way, invented the computer.

Played by Joe Bishop, Turing is seen as a man whose intellectual capacity and obsession with mathematics sets him apart from all those around him. He regards himself as occupying a separate parallel universe and, in the unenlightened era of the 1930s-50s, he is a homosexual in a world of heterosexuals. The death of a boyhood friend, Christopher Morcom, possibly an intellectual equal, scars him and the savage injustices inflicted on him in later years leave him mortally wounded.  Bishop’s sensitive portrayal lays bare his deep loneliness.

Zara Cooke plays all other significant characters in Turing’s life: his mother, his tutors, an aggressive police officer included. Most movingly, she becomes Joan Clarke, the woman alongside whom he graduates from Cambridge and with whom he reunites for wartime codebreaking work at Bletchley Park. Very briefly, they become engaged to be married.

In essence, Turing is as much of an enigma as the German code that he strives to crack and Joan Greening’s book can only skim over the surface of his life and achievements. Instead, the focus is placed firmly on Turing’s lifelong emotional turmoil and the music, composed by Joel Goodman and Jan Osborne, heightens the impact of this approach. Director Jane Miles’ simple but intense production further emphasises this central focus.

Turing died in 1954, aged only 41, and his subsequent elevation to iconic status reflects important changes in society, but it can hardly be recompense for the degradation that he suffered at the hands of the country which he served with such brilliance. A £50 note would be enough to buy a pair of tickets for this revealing little show, with change to spare. It would be money well spent.

Performance date: 9 January 2024