Fish Are Jumping, Cotton Is High

If it’s Friday, it must be Ben Whishaw.

Alas, all good things must come to an end.  You spend months planning out how you’re going to That London to see three plays in three nights, and before you know it you’re taking your seats for the final play.

Unexpectedly, I found myself more excited about going to see the revival of Jez Butterworth’s Mojo than either of the previous plays.  This may have been due to the presence of Ben Whishaw.  Or, it may have been down to the fact I had an ice cream sundae the size of Mount Doom for breakfast, and half a bottle of wine at dinner. 

Either way, I arrived at the Harold Pinter theatre full of excitement.  Which quickly evaporated when faced with a sea of people pushing and shoving each other in the lobby.  And then vanished some more when I took to my seat in the Royal Circle and realised just how poor a view it offered a Hobbit like me.   Once the man seated next to me knocked over my drink as he sat down, my good mood finally shrivelled up and died.

The play itself is a defiantly male affair, set in a seedy nightclub in 1950s London.  Club owner Ezra has discovered a rising star in the form of singer Silver Johnny, and is keen to protect his young protégé from the advances of his rival, a gangster called Sam Ross.  Club workers Potts and Sweets, meanwhile, sit in the back office dreaming about the easy life Silver Johnny surely has in store for them now – “The fish are jumping and the cotton is high”, Potts declares.

However, the following morning Ezra is discovered sawn in half by his second-in-command, Mickey, and Silver Johnny has gone missing.  Ezra’s psychotic son Baby takes the news of his father’s murder in a daydream-like manner, and as his mental stability begins to crack even further the men grow increasingly fearful for their future.

Mojo gets off to a great start – Silver Johnny silently gearing himself up for the evening’s performance, the sound of his female fans screaming in the distance.  But other than that, the first half of the play tends to drag a bit.  It’s definitely funny – Daniel Mays in particular steals the show with his portrayal of Potts, all zinging dialogue and nervous energy.  And the news of Ezra’s death offers some wonderfully dark humour.  When club doorman Skinny questions Mickey if he’s absolutely sure their boss is dead, Mickey shouts: “He’s fucking cut in half.  He’s in two bins!”

I had some problems with Rupert Grint’s performance as Sweets, mainly the fact I found it so hard to figure out what he was saying half of the time.  To be fair to Grint, it’s his stage debut, and when I could actually understand him I thought he delivered a good performance.  As Sweets essentially forms a comedy double act in the play with Potts, it would be hard for anyone to match up to Daniel Mays, nevermind an actor with considerably less experience.

My main issue with the first half of the play is that it’s all talk and very little action (though I’m sure both halves of Ezra would disagree with that).  At times, it all reminded me of the episode of Rock Profiles where Matt Lucas portrayed mockney Cockney Damon Albarn: “So I went up the apples and pears stairs and sat on an apple and pear chair and got an autograph from apples and pear Lionel Blair...”

The action doesn’t really get going until the first act comes to an end, when Baby – played with a real sense of unhinged menace by Ben Whishaw – dons Silver Johnny’s silver jacket and performs a dance routine that’s as menacing as a dance routine accompanied by silver glitter possibly can be.

The second act is much more interesting, right down to the set change as we go from the back office to the sequinned interior of the Atlantic club, where the two bins containing the dearly departed Ezra have been brought.  As Baby’s mental state continues to deteriorate and Whishaw is given more to do, the play gets more engrossing. 

Whishaw is excellent as Baby, going from a dreamy, trance-like state to an overtly sexual and genuinely threatening menace in the blink of an eye.  He also turns out to be an excellent singer and not necessarily as slight and willowy in the flesh as you might expect.  Whishaw also handles the black comedy of the play very well – after Baby has tracked down Silver Johnny, he describes his revenge upon Mr Ross: “he's got his yellow hair parted right down between his eyes...if he is coming he's going to need a jolly good lie down first”.

At heart, Mojo is a play about male relationships.  Baby’s decidedly fucked up relationship with the never-seen Ezra is just one example.  In the second act, we learn that Baby has been the victim of sexual abuse.  Later on, Baby talks about a childhood memory in which his father took him for a drive in the country and he noticed a bag of knives in front seat.  Convinced his father is going to kill him, he eventually finds out that Ezra actually plans for them to kill and cut up a cow, leaving Baby covered in blood.

The character of Skinny, played by Colin Morgan, is another interesting one.  With no father at home – just an “uncle” – he hero worships Baby, copying his hairstyle and dress sense with a barely disguised sexual tension simmering between them.  And when I say “barely disguised”, what I mean is Baby demanding that Skinny “kiss my pegs” before grinding up against him on the jukebox.  Considering the cheekbones and sharp hips on both actors, it’s a wonder the front row doesn’t walk away with paper cuts.

Another aspect of the play I really enjoyed was the real sense of claustrophobia that sets in once the Atlantic club goes into lockdown following Ezra’s death.  Daytime beckons and punters begin to gather outside waiting to be let in, but the club has become a makeshift prison for the men inside, with daylight only breaking in once as Mickey briefly opens a window.

Even if it’s not a perfect play, it certainly is an interesting one, perhaps more interesting once you’ve actually had time to sit down and think about what you’ve just seen.  Compared to the previous two plays we had seen, it may not have always held our attention to begin with, but once it got going it was very hard to look away.

Once the play ended, we decided that as it was our final night, we would carry on our tradition of being stood up by pretty-boy actors.  We arrived at the stage door just as the security man began removing the barrier, explaining that as it was raining and the actors had two performances the following day there would no be signings that night.  Failure, again!

As we were about to walk away before the pouring rain gave us pneumonia, a fellow theatregoer appeared behind me and happily exclaimed “I just got Whishaw – he’s over there”, pointing across the street.  Once I determined this wasn’t just some middle aged man toying with a fangirl’s emotions, I ran off down the street , arms flailing, Whishaw bound.

Despite the appalling weather he held court with his small army of admirers, signing whatever was put in front of him and posing for all photo requests (my own included).  A girl breathlessly explained that she had travelled all the way from China for the play.  I got overexcited and offered “We came from Belfast!”  Because, yes, travelling from Belfast to London is every bit as impressive as travelling from China.  Whishaw’s pen stopped working in the rain and I offered him my own, which he took – I am now considering designating the pen as a holy object and starting a religious order based around it.

My friend, clearly the only person gathered who wasn’t an oversexed fangirl, became Whishaw’s semi-official photographer, snapping both my picture and a picture for one of the Chinese fans.  “You were very good tonight” she said, like the friend of a proud parent who has been dragged along to the school nativity.  “You were BRILLIANT” I cried, still overexcited.

And so our final night of theatre ended.  As Potts himself put it, the fish were jumping and the cotton was high.  And most of all, the fangirls were flailing.