Review of Nevermind, Old Red Lion Theatre
EastEnders villain Chris Coghill and My Family's Daniela Denby-Ashe star in this terrific black comedy about a suicidal journo, his mum and Kurt Cobain
18 June 2009
Rating: 4/5
A play about an NME journo who talks to the ghost of Kurt Cobain and contemplates suicide, you say? Sounds like a terrible bit of fringe dross but - wait - it's brilliant.
John (Chris Coghill - Shameless, Corrie), is struggling to write a book about the Nirvana singer, while coming to terms with the death of his father. He's headed up north to stay with his mum (Ruth Evans, a retired drama teacher turned bloody good actor) who's hooked on cleaning and a cocktail of pills and tells her friends John works at the BBC.
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In between writer's block and conversations with Cobain's kooky ghost on why he topped himself, John dances ever closer to suicide.
An otherwise excellent script by Martin Sadofski, next to be adapting Dostoevsky for the Beeb, nearly comes unstuck with a visit from John's girlfriend Helen (My Family's Daniela Denby-Ashe), which doesn't add much beyond manic eyebrows and an impressively graphic sex scene.
But no matter, this is a devastatingly funny character study about the divisions between lonely generations, one which craves recognition and another which carries on regardless (the "never minds"). It also flags up two phenomenal stage talents in Coghill and Evans, with Tom Railton a quirky delight as an irreverent Kurt.
There's a reason the fringe exists, and its to see really terrific new plays like this. Grab it before it goes.
To 4 July, The Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 St John Street, Clerkenwell, EC1V 4NJ, 020 7837 7816
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