52 Souls, Chronic Insanity (online) - ★★★ - Until September 6, 2020


Do life and death depend upon the turn of a card? In this remarkably constructed entertainment written by Joe Strickland and Nat Henderson, no less than fifty-two performers have recorded short monologues. Reactions to mortality and death are put under the microscope, sometimes to devastating effect. The different pieces are viewed over the course of an hour and are randomly available to the viewer depending on which playing card from the pack one turns over. Unsurprisingly, some of the monologues work better than others both in terms of writing and delivery, but the experience is always enthralling. Several pieces stand out, none more so than the very first one I happened to choose: this monologue about the Aztec view of the after-life, is beautifully performed by Helena Rimmer. TL Thompson's very dark monologue about a child finding a dying lady's diaries is charmingly delivered and is accompanied by childlike drawings. It was probably the most poignant point of the evening. The constant reference to death and loss might have been disturbing, but the brevity of each monologue doesn't allow for too much involvement; this can be both an advantage and a stumbling block. Technically the presentation is extremely accomplished and is certainly worth watching even though the serendipitous nature of the show leads to an overall lack of form. This random development can unfortunately result in an anticlimax, as one's enjoyment will depend on which monologues you see and in which order you see them.

 Reviewed by D.S.J.

  Our Score:  ☆☆☆ 

 Want to save on tickets? See our Tips page.

 WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE:
Until September 6, 2020
Chronic Insanity (online)
Various show times available at:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/chronicinsanity/382222/

Most Popular

The Playboy of the Western World ★★★★ National Theatre | Until February 28, 2026

Image
John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World is a work rich in significance and open to varied interpretation. In his programme notes, Christopher Collins views the play through the contemporary lens of the global migrant crisis and society’s fascination with celebrity. Yet Christy Mahon’s (Christ as Man) symbolic killing of his father, who returns with amusing regularity, also invites a reading of the play as a religious satire in which Synge advances a vision of bold and irreverent humanism. In many respects, this is a radically innovative piece of writing that challenges both social expectations and the established conventions of comedy. This current National Theatre production preserves much of the original’s force and the stark and lyrical set vividly conjures the atmosphere of the west of Ireland. As the eponymous hero, Éanna Hardwicke convincingly portrays the timid youth who, through the fantasies of the townspeople, discovers his identity and is reborn as a figure...
Full Details »

Beauty and the Beast: A Horny Love Story ★★★★★ Charing Cross Theatre | Nov 21, 2025 - Jan 11, 2026

Image
This year’s big and gloriously gay panto from the “He’s Behind You!” gang has burst into the Charing Cross Theatre, and it has arrived like it owns the place. Beauty and the Beast: A Horny Love Story brings back several familiar faces, including the incomparable Matthew Baldwin, who now plays the mother of two gay children living at a petrol station in the Scottish Highlands. Baldwin is every bit as majestic as you imagine a woman in a fluorescent tabard can be. Laura Anna-Mead playing Bonnie, the frequently ignored lesbian daughter, bounces through the show with a delightful energy, while Matt Kennedy completely charms as Bertie, the titular beauty. As his beastly counterpart Keanu Adolphus Johnson is ferociously fabulous. Chris Lane earns his boos and hisses as Cornelius, the villainous brother whose moral compass has a limp arrow, while Dani Mirels deserves her cheers as the blue-haired enchantress who finds love. However, again this year, it is Baldwin who storms the stage. With a...
Full Details »

Top Hat ★★★★ Southbank Centre | Dec 12, 2025 - Jan 17, 2026

Image
“They’re Dancing Cheek to Cheek Again!” The posters and advertising for the original 1935 film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers promised romance, dancing, and songs you would never forget. This current production is every bit as delightful as the original and largely lives up to the film’s hype. The farcical confusions of the love story continue to charm and amuse, and it is refreshing that director Kathleen Marshall has chosen not to update the references. The show is unapologetically presented as a period piece, relying on the quality of its singing and dancing to bridge the gap between eras. With its unforgettable Irving Berlin score and top notch tapping from Phillip Attmore as Jerry Travers, it succeeds admirably. Attmore clearly relishes his role, and his exuberance is infectious. As Jerry’s love interest, Dale Tremont, Amara Okereke displays a fine voice, and the couple’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” is a definite highlight. As the comic foils the young lovers, Horace...
Full Details »

St. Martin in-the-fields: Lunchtime Concerts ★★★★ FREE

Image
Maybe the best musical value in London. The lunchtime concerts at St. Martin's are always a wonderful way to escape the hustle and bustle that is London and the sensory overload that is Trafalgar Square. This is a beautiful setting with great acoustics, and a church pew hard enough to make sure you don't nod off. Reviewed by J.C.  Our score:    ☆☆☆☆  WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE: Mon & Fri: 1 pm - 1:45 pm ( occasionally Tues & Thurs)  St. Martin in-the-fields, Trafalgar Square Nearest tube: Charing Cross https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on
Full Details »

Daniel’s Husband ★★★ Marylebone Theatre | Dec 4, 2025 - Jan 10, 2026

Image
Michael McKeever’s play opens with a long-established gay couple hosting a friend and the latest young man he is dating. The alcohol and the banter are flowing, and we seem to be in familiar comedic territory until an argument breaks out over gay marriage. Mitchell, a writer and Daniel’s partner, considers marriage an unnecessary, heteronormative expression of commitment. The remainder of the play is about Mitchell, and the audience, learning the importance of the institution of marriage for gay couples. Despite some clever dialogue and some good character development, this work is mainly didactic, and when Daniel falls ill, there is an uneasy sense of emotional manipulation which accompanies the lesson that we are being taught. The play also glosses over the truly formidable realities faced by caregivers when a partner develops a chronic condition. In this world both Mitchell and Daniel’s mother are affluent enough to argue over who will assume responsibility for his care without havi...
Full Details »

Indian Ink ★★★★★ Hampstead Theatre | Dec 3, 2025 - Jan 31, 2026

Image
This first-rate production of Tom Stoppard’s palimpsestic masterpiece is simply a must-see. When the English poet Flora Crewe travels to India, she sits for a portrait by the Indian painter Nirad Das. Both that portrait and this play reflect the complex melding of cultures that emerged from the British presence in India. Exploring different approaches to art and the presentation of the artist, the drama also exposes the intricate and often fraught political relationship between the two countries whose histories became so deeply intertwined. Flora’s meeting with the Indian painter hints at the complicated dynamic between a dying imperial vision and its colonial subject, while also questioning the epistemological frameworks through which we seek to understand the past. Many years later, Crewe's American biographer meets with her sister Mrs Swan as he attempts to reconstruct that Indian encounter. Both that actual experience and the artistic impression of Crewe created by Das stand in...
Full Details »

My Fair Lady ★★★★★ The Mill at Sonning | Nov 20, 2025 - Jan 17, 2026

Image
It is easy to misremember Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady as simply another musical romcom, but this superb production reminds us that it is rooted in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion . Along with the beguiling love story, there is a sharp and insightful commentary on class, gender, and the social forces that shape us. This is a transformation tale with something to say, and this first-rate staging gets the balance exactly right between fairy tale romance and pointed social critique. The beloved story of the Cockney flower girl who blossoms into a lady and the brilliant but blinkered academic, who finds he has a heart after all, is presented with uncommon clarity and warmth. It is not only the tale of Eliza’s metamorphosis, a working class woman discovering her independence, her identity, and her voice. It is also about the detached and self assured middle class academic Henry Higgins learning, sometimes painfully, what it means to truly listen. Simbi Akande is a radiant Eliza Doolittl...
Full Details »

When We Are Married ★★★★ Donmar Warehouse | Dec 6, 2025 - Feb 7, 2026

Image
Set in 1908 and written in 1938, When We Are Married was produced shortly after the passage of the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1937, which expanded the grounds for divorce beyond adultery to include cruelty and desertion. At the turn of the century, particularly for the chapel-going middle classes, marriage was firmly understood as a till-death-do-us-part commitment. For Priestley’s original audience, the play’s premise that three couples might discover, after twenty-five years together, that they were not legally married and could therefore make different choices was not only comic but almost subversive. Times have changed, but Priestley’s comedy remains strikingly relevant, especially in its clear-eyed identification of the pressures that can undermine marriage: infidelity, financial anxiety, and bullying abuse. Although these themes are treated lightly, the point behind the laughter remains sharp. The play offers shrewd insight into relationships, class and the hypocrisy that often i...
Full Details »

Oh, Mary! ★★★ Trafalgar Theatre | Dec 3, 2025 - Apr 25, 2026

Image
Riffing on the long-standing rumours that Mary Todd Lincoln was an alcoholic and that her husband harboured homosexual tendencies, Oh, Mary! is a drag extravaganza with a sharp ahistorical and satirical edge. Its humour relies heavily on standard drag tropes. There is abundant mugging, snide asides, sexual puns, and what was once considered blue language. Much of this feels familiar, and the shocked laughter that taboo sexual references once provoked has been dulled by overuse. Indeed, anyone acquainted with the drag genre will see most of the jokes coming well in advance. That said, the production values are notably higher here than those of the average drag show. The set is handsomely appointed, and the use of music to underscore scenes is effective. Cole Escola’s script presents Mary as a bored housewife yearning to become a cabaret star. In an effort to keep Mary away from the bottle, her husband hires a teacher to give her acting lessons. The funniest moments actually emerge from...
Full Details »

The Red Shoes ★★★★ Sadler's Wells Theatre | Dec 2, 2025 - Jan 18, 2026

Image
Taking inspiration from the 1948 Powell and Pressburger film, Matthew Bourne has created a sumptuous interpretation of The Red Shoes that bears his unmistakable signature while honouring Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of artistic obsession. The production possesses a strikingly cinematic quality and moves with remarkable fluidity from scene to scene. Lez Brotherston’s set design masterfully shifts between the world onstage and the more intimate realm behind the curtain, allowing the audience to experience both the external praise afforded to the young dancer Victoria Page and the private turmoil that drives her. Paule Constable’s expressive lighting enriches these transitions with subtle and atmospheric precision. Indeed, the staging of this production is extraordinarily rich, creating layers of visual interest that can border on overwhelming. As Page, Cordelia Braithwaite conveys her character’s emotional struggle with exceptional clarity, capturing the tension between her devotion t...
Full Details »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings