Plenty of drama and constant hostility, but surprisingly little reason to care
Natalie Ekberg’s HIM, directed by Simon Fielding, centres on a high-stakes modern family dynamic with figures from the past bringing drama and intrigue. When Jane unexpectedly falls pregnant with Charlie, she agrees to let him raise the child alongside his new partner, Osmond. Predictably, this unusual arrangement, over time, cracks under the mounting weight of lingering doubt, buried resentment, and deeply conflicting loyalties.
On paper, the central premise is genuinely intriguing, and the production initially does well to structure its narrative. The show paces its dramatic reveals effectively enough to keep the audience curious, continually dropping new pieces of information to maintain a sense of momentum. However, as the narrative progresses, several of these plot turns severely stretch the realms of plausibility. Rather than feeling like organic character choices, the twists feel increasingly manufactured to generate artificial friction, asking the audience to suspend their disbelief far past breaking point.
The cast works admirably hard with the material they’ve been given, delivering committed performances despite being continually hamstrung by the script. The primary issue lies not in the acting, but in what is given to them to say. The dialogue is clunky, stiff, and unnaturally structured, rarely resembling authentic human speech.
This stiffness is exacerbated by erratic scene pacing and exaggerated character beats. In one particularly early jarring instance, an entire birthday party is introduced, played out, and wrapped up in the space of roughly five minutes, with no scenic or performance cues to indicate that any further time has elapsed. Characters are required to operate on a permanent knife-edge of heightened emotion at all times, frequently turning on one another with extreme hostility for no realistic or discernible reason. This unprovoked nastiness strips the production of any warmth, ultimately leaving the audience with no one to root for, sympathize with, or genuinely care about.
Perhaps most troubling is the show’s reliance on broad, outdated character tropes. HIM repeatedly falls back on tired stereotypes: the career-driven woman who inevitably regrets prioritizing work over motherhood, the bisexual character who is portrayed as inherently incapable of fidelity, and the scheming gay couple manipulating their way into getting a baby. Handled with care, depth, and genuine nuance, these character arcs might have offered compelling dramatic weight. Aggregated together, however, and delivered with such broad, heavy-handed emotional strokes, they leave a distinctly sour taste.
HIM certainly has the foundation for a compelling contemporary drama, but in its current form, the compelling core is swallowed by unnatural dialogue, extreme characterizations, and reliance on regressive tropes.
HIM is running at the Union Theatre 19th – 30th October.