Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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The Fever Syndrome
Great acting and arresting ideas are marred by an over-written effort that risks blinding us with facts, says MARY CONWAY
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
The Fever Syndrome
Hampstead Theatre
April 5 2022
IT’S a pity that a play with so many arresting ideas and such relevance to the modern world should find itself mired in excessive detail and dead-end arguments. Sadly, this is the case with Hampstead Theatre’s premiere of Alexis Zegerman’s latest offering.
Not that the ingredients for a first-rate drama aren’t there. Professor Richard Miles, played by the inimitable Robert Lindsay, is a renowned IVF maestro who has provided thousands of desperate men and women with babies they could not otherwise have borne. Richard is about to receive a lifetime achievement award second only to the Nobel Prize and, in the eyes of the public, is an undoubted luminary. His family have gathered for the presentation event, and all should be ripe for celebration except…
…the professor is deep in the clutches of Parkinson’s disease; his family of assorted offspring and others are more diverted by their battle with the unpalatable realities of life than with his glory; meanwhile his granddaughter, Lily, carries a genetic malfunction that is the fever syndrome of the play’s title.
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