The Importance of Being Oedipus

In this edition:

• Reviews of Rami Malek in Oedipus and Ncuti Gatwa in The Importance of Being Earnest

• The National Theatre’s new season has been announced

• Cinema pick of the week: The Ballad of Wallis Island

• And here’s another story confirming about UK audience’s behaving terribly that links back to this piece I wrote a few months ago.

Will Trump’s tariffs harm Hollywood?

Twin towers in the Chinese city of Chengdu were illuminated with characters from the movie Ne Zha 2 during a light show on Saturday.

In less than two weeks since its release, Ne Zha 2, an animated film based loosely on Chinese mythology and a famous 16th century novel, has become the highest-grossing movie ever in China, with more than $1 billion in ticket sales. It is the first film not made by a Hollywood studio to cross that mark, demonstrating a shift in Chinese filmgoers towards domestic films and away from Hollywood. As the world’s second-largest movie market, after America, Chinese audiences were once a dependable source of ticket sales for US blockbusters. That is no longer the case. Last year, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was the only U.S. movie in the top 10 of China’s box office, ranking ninth. In 2023, no American film made the top 10.

In Cinemas

The Ballad of Wallis Island

Tim Key (British comedy gold), Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan bring charm and whimsy to this offbeat, music-laced romantic comedy, set against the rugged beauty of the Welsh coastline. A delightful concoction of laughter and longing - glowing reviews from Sundance.

To Book

Backstroke at The Donmar Warehouse, 14th Feb - 12th April

A poignant, kaleidoscopic reflection on family, resilience, and the echoes of memory, starring Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig. Written and directed by the visionary Anna Mackmin.

Playfight at The Soho Theatre, 8th–26th April

A raw and urgent exploration of female adolescence, sexuality, and identity, Julia Grogan’s Playfight follows the lives of three young friends growing up beneath the shelter of an ancient oak tree. A meditation on friendship, resilience, and the insidious pressures of hyper-sexualisation, the play resonated powerfully with audiences during its sold-out premiere at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe (where I previously reviewed it).

New shows at The National Theatre to book now.

Here’s a taste of what you can look forward to later this year:

• Inter Alia: Rosamund Pike makes her National Theatre debut in this searing new play by Suzie Miller (Prima Facie).

• The Estate: BAFTA winner Adeel Akhtar takes on the role of an ambitious politician in Shaan Sahota’s remarkable debut play.

• The Land of the Living: See Juliet Stevenson in this timely new play by David Lan exploring the shapeshifting nature of memory and morality.

• End: Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves feature in the final play of David Eldridge’s trilogy, which explores love and relationships.

An Oak Tree at The Young Vic, 6th-17th May

To mark its 20th anniversary, Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree will be revived at the Young Vic. The play features Crouch alongside a different guest artist each night—none of whom will have read the script beforehand. A hypnotist and a grieving father, a tragic accident and an improbable meeting—An Oak Tree unfolds as a meditation on grief, perception, and the fragile power of suggestion. This new production will welcome a remarkable roster of guest artists, including Ṣọ́pẹ́ Dìrísù, Michelle Terry, Luke Thompson, Russell Tovey and Indira Varma.

Reflections

The Importance of Being Earnest at The National

Wilde’s tale of two quick-witted bachelors entangling themselves in an absurd web of deception under the pretence of pursuing women is delightfully frivolous, outrageously implausible and the campest show to come out of panto season. Algernon and his inseparable companion Jack (Hugh Skinner) are not merely charming English gentlemen in this adaptation - they are unmistakably queer. Being flamboyant, sharply dressed and brimming with theatricality may not define one’s sexuality but this production leaves little to interpretation. As modern flourishes—expletives, James Blunt—pile up, it becomes clear that Webster is not so much engaging with the world Earnest was written in as he is reshaping it entirely. Yet, one cannot deny that Max Webster’s production is exuberantly, undeniably and unapologetically gay. Doctor Who’s Ncuti Gatwa takes on Algernon, making a dazzling entrance in a voluminous pink ballgown, miming a dramatic piano performance while his fellow actors swirl around him in coordinated tuxedos and vintage moustaches. The tone is set- and it only grows bolder from there.

The production’s crowning achievement is Sharon D Clarke’s Lady Bracknell—an imposing, exquisitely dressed matriarch, adorned in a towering yellow hat and a regal head-wrap. She is both commanding and cutting, her every word dripping with classist disdain and a delightful send-up of Victorian hypocrisy. Wilde wrote possibly the funniest play in the English language - and Webster has successfully hit the right keys here.

Oedipus

For ten minutes, this show seemed poised to be the theatrical triumph of the year. A troupe of dancers, electrified with ritualistic abandon, pulsed across the stage like a tableau of Matisse figures caught in the throes of divine ecstasy. The rhythm of drum and bass fused with the spectral glow of pulsating light in perfect synchronisation with choreographed limbs, climaxing in a reveal of Rami Malek - our Oedipus - at the centre of this fever dream, his body twisted in tortured repose.

And then, he opened his mouth and began voicing Ella Hickson’s wooden script.

That might sound harsh but from an Academy Award winning actor there comes a certain level of expectation. Malek’s performance unspooled into uncertainty, his American drawl flattening every line into something curiously weightless. Even the steadying presence of Indira Varma’s Jocasta could not contain the creeping tide of unintended laughter that rippled through the stalls as the play’s most devastating revelation landed with an unceremonious thud.

Hickson’s adaptation tries to tread bold ground—reshaping Jocasta’s fate with newfound agency, amplifying the misogyny of Creon and infusing humour where none was expected - but boldness alone cannot salvage a faltering vision and what might have been a fierce reinvention (like Robert Icke’s masterful production with Mark Strong) ultimately dissolves into a discordant, misshapen mess. You sit there craving for the dancers return to drown out the acting on stage. A night of theatre both exhilarating and exasperating where brilliance flickers—only to be extinguished by its own contradictions.

And Finally…. please read this brilliant piece on reviewing versus recommending by Isobel Lewis in Exeunt…

How revisiting The Years left me doubting my memory