MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
Latest editorial
The Fever Syndrome
Great acting and arresting ideas are marred by an over-written effort that risks blinding us with facts, says MARY CONWAY
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
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.
More from this author
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
MARY CONWAY applauds the revival of a tense, and extremely funny, study of men, money and playing cards
MARY CONWAY applauds the study of a dysfunctional family set in an Ireland that could be anywhere
MARY CONWAY relishes two matchless performers and a masterclass in tightly focused wordplay
