Birthday

When: Tuesday 7th August

Where: Royal Court

Why: Stephen Mangan

I’d never been in the Royal Court theatre before, but had glimpsed it when diving into Sloane Square tube station after trips to the Liz Earle shop and admired its retro frontage (oi oi). Inside it’s a little maze, with cafes and lifts and staircases and bookshops all extremely charmingly dotted around corners. Inside the theatre itself was brilliantly old-mannish, with steel pillars and brown leather seats that wouldn’t look out of place on the set of Top Gear. Big fan of the decor. I also enjoyed our seats which were in the slips (that’s round the side, for you and I) and apparently limited view, but which actually gave us a unique look over the hospital bed which had its back to the audience. This bed contained a surreptitious Stephen Mangan, who was either pretending to be asleep or had learnt from past experience that fans might try to pull faces at him from above, as we were doing. My theatre buddy Charles (@cakespeareuk) had procured us a £12 ticket and we were ready to roll.

Basically this is a play about role reversal and a pregnant man. If you ever had a hankering to see a swollen hairy belly bouncing towards you, or a bloke begging for an epidural, this was the play for you. The obvious physical issues re: men bearing children were briefly covered but mainly glossed over, as the point I think was to see how men and women react differently in the same situation, rather than a realistic futuristic possibility. The rotating stage whizzed round to show the passing of time and the small space worked really well to help the audience feel the claustrophobia of a couple stuck in the same hospital room for hours and hours.

The wife (patient, chippy, anxious and detatched with worry from their first child) talks the husband through the stages of birth and ends up pretty much going through it all again vicariously through his wild and enthusiastic whining. After hours of negligence by the hilariously dispassionate nurse played by Llewella Gideon (who I only knew becuase she played Scary Spice in the Comic Relief version of Who Do You Think You Are many years ago), the baby has to be emergency caesarian-ed, catches MRSA, and another seemingly incompetent nurse bears the brunt of their rage and distress – after which follows a brilliant scene involving surgical gloves and Milk Tray being chucked around the hospital room.

It’s a new play (by Joe Penhall) and has moments of hilarity combined with spots of real feeling. I didn’t find myself getting that sucked into it emotionally – maybe because of all the frustration and rage and shouting, but it was pretty funny. I get the feeling that in the hands of a lesser-known male lead, it might end up as a fairly mediocre viewing experience, but thanks to Mangan’s expertise (the role seems basically made for his particular brand of comedic vulnerability) it was overall an enjoyable experience.

I’d say go and see it, but it’s over now so you can’t (yeah, sorry about that). 

                

Brixpig x