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.
