The 25th anniversary performance of Strut & Fret’s Look Behind You features a completely updated book both classic in its recognizable theatrical tropes and urgent in its relevance to the present moment in arts and commerce. Daniel Wain’s love letter to “the bitchiest, barmiest, bravest business of them all,” encompasses the wide range of characters and character flaws that make a theatre tick.
Set during the run of Christmas pantomime, Dick Whittington, at the aptly if unsubtly named, “Britannia” this play minces no words. Subtlety is wholly eschewed and in its absence something urgent, theatrical, and true, prevails. No matter how dazzling the script, and believe me it is dazzling, this is the kind of show in which one sour note might poison the whole symphony. Fortunately, each and every performer in this cast is flawless, or rather, all the more compelling for their perfectly performed, both entertaining and relatable, flaws.
Although writer, producer, and star, Wain, manages to churn out goofy innuendo and cutting commentary at a near superhuman rate, every member of the cast receives the opportunity to be fiercely funny and every member rises to the occasion.
Unlike the somewhat similarly conceived, Goes Wrong Show, the joke here is not on them or strictly on us. There are plenty of amusing mishaps but none of this plot is driven by incompetence or apathy. Rather, we see each character’s desperate commitment to make the show the best it can possibly be, each for their own individual reasons and each hindered by their own unique weaknesses. They are none of them perfect but all of them impossible not to root for.
Every bit of set dressing, every costume, and every sound and light cue is in perfect harmony, managing to be convincing without ever distracting. Wain’s heartbreaking theatre manager Sam Nancarrow as the hilarious Sarah the Cook is resplendent, appearing in a different elaborate costume for almost every scene and justifying each one through sheer fabulous gravitas. The design of the show is altogether so coherent that it is difficult to pick out any individual element to compliment. Each character is so lived in that their costumes and props seem inevitable. Of course, stage manager Maggie wears her hair in a braid. Of course, Queen Rat, Norma Bailey, throws a dressing gown over her stage dress while brewing assam for her castmates.
The cast is 11 strong (very strong) but Wain’s script and Barney Hart Dyke’s direction is so generous and even handed with each of them that you’d be forgiven for thinking it much smaller, so thoroughly does the audience get to know each character. This ensemble functions seamlessly and has a group chemistry so palpable that it infects the crowd. The theatre itself is small, seating approximately 80, but the convivial atmosphere pervades it and even diffuses through the bar downstairs and street outside after the performance has ended. This is the type of show that when the curtain falls leaves you feeling as if you’ve just lost eleven of your closest friends. Clever, kind, and unapologetically lewd, Look Behind You is a triumph.
Playing until 3rd February, https://tabard.org.uk/whats-on/look-behind-you/
Reviewer: Kira Daniels
Reviewed: 19th January 2024
North West End UK Rating: