The Clinic - Almeida

The inexplicable standing ovation is a feature of fringe theatre - it is explained by the presence in the audience of friends and colleagues of the actors and other creatives.

Oh dear...i am supposed to see this on Saturday...anyone else has got feedback? Thinking that if press reviews are equally bad I won't bother.

Press night is tonight, so should be some reviews around tomorrow.

I'm seeing this tonight. Will try to ignore the less than favourable reports and go with an open mind.

I think I enjoyed this but was quite conscious throughout that it wasn’t firing on all cylinders. As others have said, the writing was the biggest problem. There were definitely interesting ideas but it painted in broad brushstrokes and seemed to get a bit lost in itself.

Liked the performances, though, and in particular I thought Gloria Obianyo as Ore was a standout.

On a more practical level, by the interval I felt pretty lost in terms of the actual plot. I didn’t quite understand why Wunmi had been invited into the family home (except to drive the plot along). I thought it was just me and that I’d missed something, so was frantically flipping through the play text at the interval. Was quite relieved when I overheard the couple next to me express their confusion about the exact same thing! Comes down, again, to the writing.

On balance worth seeing, but nothing to write home about.

Saw the matinee yesterday, and liked a lot of it. This tries to do (and be) so many things, but in it's essence, and in how it's directed, it's "An Inspector Calls" for the affluent British black community, asking whether each or any of them have done enough for the less well off. This could have been brilliant if it had been laser-focused, but it isn't, and thus it's bemusing for how many things it tries to be. Gloria Obianyo is terrific.

Some spoilers follow. . .

This begins with a black family dancing in their kitchen, which immediately had me thinking this was going to be a "Fairview" style critique of the way white people see black people. After all, that play powerfully argued that this sort of reductive and clichéd view of black families is a modern day form of minstrelsy, or at the very least, a lazy way to portray three dimensional people.

This wasn't what the play was about, though I do believe that the dancing family image is there deliberately to suggest there might be something disturbing going on lol.

Nor was the play your standard family-gathering-erupts-in-conflict play, though it seemed like it might be.

Nor was it your standard Wesker-inflected epitaph of a decaying politically motivated family type of play, though it seemed like it. It certainly name checked lots of politicians, from Starmer to Johnson to Cleverly to Badenoch.

It also could have been a full on melodrama for all the thick full on thrust of plot.

Or, it could have been a send-up of a melodrama, like that old Billy Crystal TV sitcom, Soap, which just kept getting more and more complicated, until you just start laughing.

This was, I felt, at one point, almost certainly, a Brimstone and Treacle style outsider-brings-poison-into-family-well horror show.

Or was it, the "Spur of the Moment" twist on the poisonous Outsider plot, where you actually discover that it's an insider who is the real poison in the well?

Essentially, I was mouth-open flabbergasted half the time, and fascinated the other half of the time. But eventually, I formed the view that it is probably all of the above, but more than any of them, the plot screaming to get out from all the clutter was a very special twist on "An Inspector Calls," whereby the invading outsider, Wunmi, essentially investigates the hearts of a somewhat complacent family.

This reading was supported by the spooky supernatural flames and sounds that the director utilises, and really could have been a great play if (1) all the other plays within plays had been sidelined; and (2) if Gloria Obianyo had played the part of Wunmi.

The actress playing Wunmi is perfectly fine, but she lacks the brooding thoughtfulness and intensity that Obianyo brings to every scene, and which I felt would really light up the fiery inquisition this play is supposed to be.

Messy but intriguing. 3 stars from me for the excellent play that almost peeks out from behind all the other plays that this is.