2:22 - Coward/Gielgud/Criterion/Lyric/Apollo/Gielgud

Has anyone seen any offers for this for London?

I thought I might pop and see it as an extra show on a Sunday when I'm down but decent seats are fairly pricey.

Thanks:)

You may be in tears during the tail end.

Dean Gaffney is playing the Prince alongside Kerry Katona in the Easter panto tour of Rapunzel until June. Why do I know this?!

"Barry" would actually be a great shout though.

Nothing yet

Last minute change of heart from H from Steps?

Jaime Winstone, Clifford Samuel, Sophia Bush, and Ricky Champ.

They’ve finally got me with Sophia Bush, the One Tree Hill fan in me can’t miss this

Cheryl was surprisingly not awful, or maybe she seemed passable considering the other 3 actors were...passable.

Saw the twist coming literally ten minutes in - ALEXA ANYONE?! - so that was that.

Glad to have ticked it off, will never see it again.

I have this weird conspiracy theory the whole thing is a money laundering scheme but that's for another day 😂

Saw the latest iteration of this tonight, and although the acting is strong and the basic premise and structure are still sturdy, this is the weakest of the three versions I've seen. Clifford Samuel is terrific.

Some spoilers follow. . .

If the A story line is whether or not there's a ghost (Jamie Winstone's Jenny says "Yes," but her husband, Clifford Samuel's Sam says "hell no"), the B storylines concern guest couple, Ben and Lauren, where Ben stresses about a class divide, between himself and everyone else, and Jenny stresses about seeing her old fancy, Sam.

For the play to really pop, it's imperative we get distracted from the A storyline (the plot is otherwise too linear, the solution is easy to guess and the scares are cheap tricks) by the B storylines. The B storylines create an atmosphere of delightful delirium and complex social chaos that have the potential to add a massive amount of comedy and drama to the proceedings.

In the first Lily Allen iteration of 2:22, Jake Wood brought the chaos to the character of Ben, his inferiority complex manifesting in the most outlandish and outsize behaviour that stunned the other characters and ladled in the laughs from the audience.

In the Cheryl iteration, my favourite by far, not only did Jake Wood return to bring the chaos, but he brought the even more chaotic, nervy, edgy, bitter, alcoholic Louise Ford with him, as his partner, Lauren. Ford's performance was a masterclass, every action and look filled with desire and memory and intention. Like a hoity toity Noel Coward character who wandered in from another play, you couldn't take your eyes off her, as her beady eyes ate Sam up right out from under Cheryl. Coupled with Cheryl's more self-effacing embodiment of haunted fearfulness (which Allen also achieved, but with more fragility and notes to her performance), the B storylines served as spectacular entertainment, spurring endless audience laughter and gasps of excitement, allowing the more quotidian A storyline just the right amount of playtime as well as an effective climax.

In this iteration, however, while Ricky Champ is gloriously sensitive, believable and loveable, he simply doesn't dominate the audience the way Wood's enormous dick of a Ben did. Similarly, while One Tree Hill fans will revel in the elegance, dignity, decency and credibility of Sophia Bush's Lauren's hush-voiced restraint and poise, as a psychiatrist who never fulfilled her desires, that very restraint diminishes the effect and function of the B storylines.

Thus, the A storyline is mightily exposed in this iteration, and although Clifford Samuel's Sam is excitably compelling and funny as the disbeliever in the supernatural, he can't hide the A storyline's flaws.

Jamie Winstone, who I felt was terrific opposite Russell Tovey in "Sex with a Stranger" at the Trafalgar 2, is a more experienced actress than either Lily Allen or Cheryl, and consequently, given the threadbare B storyline, her worries and fears about ghosts absolutely overpower the proceedings here, with her Jenny a much more imposing and searching figure than either Allen or Cheryl were, thrusting the mysteries of the ghost story perpetually to the fore. If this material was better, that would be a good thing, but instead, it serves to highlight the weakest aspects of the show.

Therefore, despite 4 good performances, this is not more than the sum of its parts, and the material creaks at times. 3 and a half stars from me.

It is touring in the Autumn so it's a maybe.

Don't think we should knock a successful play, it's better than a dark theatre. 

This terrible play has been clogging up west end theatres for far too long, enough now.