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REVIEW: King of Pangaea at King’s Head Theatre

Published on June 14, 2025June 14, 2025 by violethowsonLeave a comment

Overall, however, King of Pangaea is slick, ambitious, and sweet; a lovely little musical that deals with loss through child-like innocence and the transcendence of hope.

King of Pangaea, a new musical from Martin Storrow, is a One Act spritely epic about familial grief, hope, imagination.

Sam Crow (Alfie Backwell), an ordinary boy, is grieving the loss of his mother. In order to deal with this, he travels to Pangaea, a practically uninhabited island of his own imaginative creation in search of a metaphysical puzzle piece.

Along the way, he encounters a variety of mystical, swashbuckling types, beautifully clad in colourful garments (a wonderful Carly Brownbridge). The narrative itself evades clarity somewhat, but this shall suffice.

Whilst it isn’t packed with musical bangers, the cast are wonderful, all with angelic voices. in his professional debut, Blackwell is charismatic and adorable, easily holding his own. HIs voice, above all else, is gorgeous.

There is perhaps something a little oxymoronic about a one act musical in that it slightly undermines its grandeur. but King of Pangaea is pacy and holds attention – no mean feat in this attention deficit economy.

The story and energy of the piece is sweet, with a palpable heart. it is perhaps a little too earnest, a little too saccharine for british sensibility. but tomato, tomato; potato, potato.

Kudos must be handed to the set design (also Brownbridge). Inventive, with a vibe of child-like wonder, the set itself plays a large role in the success of the show.

The cast are strong, and competent. Dan Burton as Sam’s father and sometimes-pirate is particularly engaging, and Emily Tang eminently watchable. Mark Curry as an immortal Prophet Elijah is charming, and Sophia Ragavelas as Sam’s mother, Celia, underscores much of the emotion. They are all slightly hampered by a script lacking in nuance, and a plot that squeezes in everything without definition. Narratively, it was slightly incoherent, and in its ambition loses sight of its core explorations. It may have benefited from a whittling of narrative plot points to focus more on the interpersonal familial relationships and how loss and grief are felt and communicated by all involved.

REVIEW: Thanks For Having Me

Published on April 11, 2025April 11, 2025 by violethowsonLeave a comment

A silly and endlessly engaging piece that excellently straddles the funny and the thought-provoking

Thanks For Having Me, a new play written by and starring a confusingly endearing Keelan Kember, is a naturalistic examination of the politics and culture of dating and hookups in contemporary life, directed by Monica Cox. It is a four-hander, but mostly it’s a male two-hander, with Kember as paralytically anxious Cashel and Kedar Williams-Stirling as his suave, sexy, yet emotionally illiterate best friend. Their Odd Couple opposition is used to narrative effect, as Cashel is comically neurotic, chronically terrified, and pathologically monogamous. And the dialogue between themis superb: witty repartee, mixed with cutting social observation; it’s compelling and ever so entertaining.

The main thing to understand about Thanks For Having Me is that it is light and genuinely very funny, with an intelligent backbone. And this should be sufficient to recommend it. Plus, Kember and Williams-Sterling are wonderful; eccentric and engaging. They have a natural chemistry and charm, complementing the dialogue beautifully.

The women of the piece, given the premise, do quickly become accessories to the plot, and lack substance. Whilst Kember’s dialogue thrives with the men, it is less convincing on the female side. He does, nevertheless, make some interesting discursive attempts to tackle the misogynistic minefield of modern dating and hookup culture in which women cannot possibly win. With that in mind, Adeyinka Akinrinade and Nell Tiger Free as Maya and Eloise respectively do what they need to do and do it well.

Thanks For Having Me is interested in a kind of male emotional digestion, examining how men are able to navigate their feelings about modern dating and about the women they sleep with. Cashel is recently out of a long-term relationship, whereas Honey has yet to even be in any kind of official relationship. They discuss their romantic issues at length, and with much hilarity. There is a slight conceptual dilemma: Honey and Cashel are eloquent and articulate with their emotions. Even with his lack of emotional self-awareness, Honey is quick to introspect and is able to evaluate and analyse emotions in a way that seems at odds with his character.

Cashel, too, is often paralysed by his own emotional self-awareness, but able to speak articulately at length about it. And it’s very engaging to watch a piece in which a man displays evidence of self-awareness and emotional literacy, even if it necessitates deep neuroticism. However, one questions how realistic this is: do men really have lengthy conversations about the depths and nuances of their feelings and relationships with women? Are straight men, on mass, truly able to have such consistent conversations, without judgement of themselves or the other? I hope so. But I’m not convinced.

That being said, there’s something pleasingly counter-cultural in indulging in a piece of theatre where the men profoundly fail the Bechtel Test – if such a male equivalent exists. But I applaud the creation of such a piece of theatre. And it’s refreshing to watch two men discuss, without irony or much self-consciousness (perhaps too little), women and relationships in a way that isn’t inherently misogynistic.

The excellent dialogue does work to compensate the less fulfilling plot (the ending is perhaps the weakest spot), but given the premise, plot is not the priority. Small narrative issues are easily forgiven. For overall, Thanks For Having Me is a silly exploration of modern dating culture that achieves an excellent balance between funny and thought-provoking.

REVIEW: Kenrex

Published on February 21, 2025February 20, 2025 by violethowsonLeave a comment

True Crime, unless expertly selected and created, easily becomes an exploitation of real-life horror and suffering for cheap entertainment.

Press Night for Kenrex, written and performed by Jack Holden, was received with rapturous cheers and applause, not to mention a standing ovation – although these are handed out so frequently nowadays, they signify little. By all accounts, Kenrex is being lauded and revered. So, I recognise I am in a small minority. Nevertheless, Kenrex is at best, a bit tedious, and at worst, a bit deplorable.

In short, Kenrex is an adaptation of a true crime story. It goes without saying – though I shall say it to ensure balance – that Holden’s choice to perform a two hour show and play every character is a skill, and a feat of endurance and stamina. But other than ostentatiously displaying this skill, the question still very much remains: why? Literally, why? Sure, it’s mildly amusing within the first ten minutes to see this man metamorphose into a host of small-town Midwestern Americans. But after this initial display, it’s just annoying.

Sure, it wasn’t all horrendous: the live musician (John Patrick Elliot) was an engaging addition; his musical interludes were welcome entertainment and did much to cultivate the Americana vibe. The minimal staging and set design (Anisha Fields) were also inventive, working with versatility in tandem with Holden, who commands the space well.

The biggest issue with the one-man extravaganza is that it feels self-indulgent. Holden is the writer of this piece, and it’s hard not to sense that Kenrex is a contrived showcase for his skill, rather than a show teeming with narrative, or a story that needed to be told. Which brings us to the story. The story: it’s 1981, and an unintelligent man, prone to violence, theft, and, oh yeah, statutory rape, is terrorising the small Midwestern village of Skidmore, Missouri. The point of intrigue – I think – is that, despite a host of convictions, Kenrex McElroy has never spent a night in jail. This is because of his attorney, who unfailingly identifies judicial loopholes. But even this narrative crux is unimpressive: Skidmore’s small population size and the absence of a police department within an hour radius or efficient bureaucratic procedure, is the predominant reason for Kenrex’s reign of terror.

The pointlessness and indeed, untenability of the one-man show was clearly evidenced by the fact that frequently, it relied on pre-recorded voices to fill in for other people when Holden was otherwise occupied. Theatre should be a space for experimentation, and Holden’s ambition deserves recognition. Yet, if you are going to create a show in which one man plays every role, then surely, you can’t rely on external means to fill in the gaps? It’s lazy, and it’s testament to a failure in your endeavour.

Another point of discomfort – spoiler alert ahead – is the inclusion of Kenrex’s 14-year-old wife, Trina, whom he groomed, impregnated, then married to sidestep accusations of statutory rape (another legal loophole). For Holden, the adoption of every character does lend itself to caricature and pantomime performance, so to caricature Trina, a clear victim, farms trauma for entertainment. It’s crass and in poor taste. And in this vein, the ending feels entirely unclear: what questions have been explored by this piece? Why did it need telling? Was there really any moral ambiguity? What did this achieve for the victims? And why, why, are we rehashing another tale of a murderous misogynist who does nothing but damage? True Crime, unless expertly selected and created, easily becomes an exploitation of real-life horror and suffering for cheap entertainment. It’s one thing to employ such entertainment for podcast material, but another entirely for the theatre.