A phenomenon in every aspect
Madly gripping and jaw-droppingly masterful, this is the best crafted piece on stage I have seen in years. While the mini-series Adolescence became a global phenomenon earlier this year, Kenrex, though a stage play, delivers an experience nothing short of that: a true-crime story transformed into two hours of utterly thrilling entertainment, plus a rock concert.
After two successful runs at the Sheffield Theatre and Southwark Playhouse, Kenrex finally returns for a three-month run at The Other Palace in London. The show centres on the true-crime story of Ken Rex McElroy and his haunting presence in Skidmore, a small town in Missouri. Daring, dazzling, and with music that drops you directly into the American Midwest, Kenrex offers an experience like no other.
The script is so excellent it is hard to pinpoint what makes it great, much like the show as a whole. It uses an interview with District Attorney David Baird as a narrative starting point and then, through Jack Holden’s astonishing mastery of characterisation, we enter the world of Skidmore. The opening sequences possess the literary quality of a finely written novel. The story unfolds in chapters, presenting Ken Rex from different perspectives. Through these gazes, he is feared, demonised, empathised with, and even pitied. The writing is fast paced, compact, vivid, and deeply entertaining. It resembles a screenplay, with events conveyed through sharp dialogue, quick cuts, and striking imagery. Yet Holden, as an experienced writer, also knows how to flirt with a live audience. The script is more than storytelling; it is a living, pulsing presence on stage that grips you and does not let go.
Matching the mastery of Holden’s writing is his stage performance. Many solo shows must work within constraints, but for Holden, constraints simply do not exist; the whole world is his. As a phenomenal actor, he morphs into more than ten distinct characters through physical and vocal transformation. Each is not only highly distinctive but also memorable, relatable, and entertaining. He turns every potential difficulty of a one-person show into moments of astonishment. He does not just perform; he creates phenomena. He is the phenomenon.
Under Ed Stambollouian’s masterful direction, all other elements on stage work as smoothly and transformatively as the story itself. The music, composed and performed by John Patrick Elliott, elevates the storytelling and world-building into something closer to a rock concert, pulsing with the life and rhythm of the show and carrying the audience viscerally through every minute. Instead of a holistic set, the production uses movable pieces. Each component shifts, deconstructs, and reconstructs visuals and meanings, working perfectly with the audience’s imagination. The lighting design by Joshua Pharo blends chiaroscuro contrasts, dramatic silhouettes, and forceful neon colours, lifting moments of dramatic tension into highly cinematic visuals on stage. Not a second is wasted; every image serves the story and its visceral impact.
Finally, through the tale of an individual and a community, the show poses a fundamental question. If the law fails in its duty to regulate and protect, then what…justifies its existence? Could violent retaliation against evil ever constitute justice, or does it merely initiate another cycle of larger-scale injustice?