The Man – Finborough Theatre, London

Writer: James Graham

Director: Kate Wasserberg.

Reviewer: Deborah Klayman

The Public Reviews Rating:

Played by a rotating cast and made up of the main character’s recollections, which are performed in an order determined on the night, The Man promised to be an exciting and engaging piece of interactive theatre.

Written and (on this night) performed by Finborough Playwright-in-Residence James Graham, the productions suffers slightly from style-over-content and veers from amusing to moving via moments of tedium as the central device of picking parts of the narrative to tell in a random order works with varying degrees of success.

Initially the character of Ben is presented as an anxious, neurotic young man who is feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of completing his first self assessment tax return. With the help of Lisa, an Inland Revenue employee who speaks to him from within the audience, he tries to separate his receipts (distributed to the audience as they enter) into boxes marked ‘Expenses’ and ‘Not Expenses’ and recounts the memories associated with each. Some stories are longer than others – some are merely playing a piece of music – but each brings the audience closer to understanding Ben and his past. There are extremely touching moments, and Graham gave a strong performance, often holding back tears that seemed ready to burst forth at any moment. Alternatively though there were times where the momentum was lost and he was reminiscent of a likeable stand up comic who had unfortunately not brought his best material.

Due to the nature of the piece it is hard to review, being that the next audience will see a different show. Several sections are obviously set however, such as the opening and end exchanges with Lisa, and these are the parts that work best and have the most authenticity. The interactive aspect did not feel organic, and basically amounted to Graham walking up and down the central aisle collecting receipts from the audience members – there was no further interplay. Ostensibly well written, it felt that the production either needed to take the concept further or do away with it entirely, as the same feeling could have been achieved by pulling receipts out of a box and the actor selecting the order as seemed appropriate.

On the whole an enjoyable piece of theatre with a winsome central performance and a notable contribution by Lizzy Watts as Lisa, The Man still fell short of being the innovative production it had promised to be.