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 »

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 »

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 »

David Copperfield ★★★★ Jermyn Street Theatre | Nov 20 - Dec 20, 2025

Image
It seems like an impossible task. Can you really squeeze all of the incidents and characters of one of Dickens' sprawling novels into a two-hour theatrical production and have all of the people played by only three actors? Amazingly, the Guildford Shakespeare Company manages to do just that. This theatrical version of Dickens' semi-autobiographical masterpiece is remarkably faithful to the original story, and somehow the small cast brings to life each of the author's wonderfully eccentric creations. From the ever optimistic Mr Micawber to the unctuous Uriah Heep every figure David Copperfield encounters on his life-journey becomes a believable and engaging personage. As in the novel, we begin at the moment of David's birth and end with his marriage to a paragon of Victorian virtue. Along the way we are introduced to a plethora of weird characters and must navigate a convoluted plot that is riddled with coincidence. Refreshingly in this telling, the familiar Dickensian...
Full Details »

All My Sons ★★★★★ Wyndham’s Theatre | Until March 7, 2026

Image
Bryan Cranston’s star shines brightly in Ivo Van Hove’s splendid revival of Arthur Miller’s 1946 masterpiece. Cranston is a completely compelling presence as Joe Keller, the kindly older businessman who plays imaginary games with neighbourhood children. His portrayal is simply remarkable as this pleasant veneer is peeled away and the war profiteer and self-serving sophist beneath it are revealed. The games he shares with the children echo the ones he plays with his family and friends, whom he draws into colluding with his pretence of innocence and with the web of rationalisations he has spun for his past actions. Miller’s work carries an epic weight that Van Hove captures with his sparse staging, and Cranston’s performance evokes the moral authority and emotional force of Greek tragedy. As Joe’s wife, Kate, whose belief in her husband is tied to her certainty that her son survived the war, Marianne Jean-Baptiste also gives an unforgettable performance. The strong cast is completed by P...
Full Details »

End ★★★★ National Theatre | Nov 13 - Jan 17, 2026

Image
End is the third play in David Eldridge's trilogy about couples at different stages of their relationships. In this final instalment, Alfie (Clive Owens) and Julie (Saskia Reeves) confront Alfie’s imminent death from cancer. Their exchanges are at once humorous and deeply affecting as they revisit memories, moments of happiness, regrets, and past conflicts. Plans for the funeral become conversations about dying and tentative imaginings of what might lie ahead. Each of the three plays is set in the morning, a liminal period between night and day that suggests transition and vulnerability. However, in this instance, the strictly limited timeframe feels somewhat contrived. Too much is compressed into a span that in reality would unfold over several days. Dividing the play into a series of distinct scenes with overlapping discussions might have made for greater verisimilitude and prevented some of the abrupt changes in tone and subject matter. Within ninety minutes all five of Kübler...
Full Details »

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold ★★★ @sohoplace | Nov 17, 2025 - Feb 21, 2026

Image
John le Carré’s landmark espionage tale remains a defining work of the genre. At the height of the Cold War, spymaster Alec Leamas has just seen one of his most trusted agents killed. Ready at last to abandon the service, he is instead drawn into a final, intricate scheme meant to topple his old adversary, Mundt, head of East Germany’s foreign intelligence apparatus. Leamas is only required to present himself as a whiskey-soaked cynic who is willing to betray his country - a role that comes all too naturally to a man who has grown tired of every trick in the trade. Yet two forces could unravel this cunning plan: the romantic resurrection of Leamas' long-extinguished idealism, or the dawning suspicion that he is a pawn, rather than a player, in someone else’s unforgiving game. David Eldridge’s adaptation and Jeremy Herrin’s meticulous staging capture the novel’s bleak, noir-tinged world with striking fidelity. Even the heavy burden of exposition, required to guide the audience throu...
Full Details »

Ride the Cyclone ★★★★★ Southwark Playhouse, Elephant | Nov 14, 2025 - Jan 10, 2026

Image
“Life isn’t a game. It’s a ride.” This zany Canadian musical takes that mantra and blasts it into orbit. The setup is simple: six teens from the Saint Cassian Chamber Choir of Uranium City, Saskatchewan die in a roller-coaster accident. After that, the weirdness ramps up fast. The afterlife is presided over by a robot named The Amazing Karnak, a mechanical oracle who foresaw their deaths and calmly predicts his own. He informs the teens that one of them can return to life, but only if the vote is unanimous. What follows is a series of musical pleas as each teen lays out not just the life they lived, but the one they fantasised about. Their stories spill out in songs that swing between comedy and heartbreak. We meet the town overachiever, the macho Ukrainian immigrant, the closeted Taco Bell employee, the eager-to-please nice girl and even a teen whose identity is a complete mystery. This show is a gem. It sparkles with self-deprecating wit, meta jokes and killer performances. Baylie Ca...
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 »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings