EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern
Uber-menshen
MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds the revival of an eerily prophetic drama
SCANDALOUS: Sean Delaney in Brilliant Jerks at Southwark Playhouse
[Pic: Nick Rutter ]
BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora
The bard confirms that the right has a humour bypass, and replays the English Revolution on period instruments
MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
Brilliant Jerks
by Joseph Charlton
Southwark Playhouse
WHEN Joseph Charlton’s Brilliant Jerks was first performed at Vault Festival in 2018, Uber was less than a decade old, but its influence on the world was already enormous. Despite huge global resistance to its exploitative practices and a series of scandals, it is now an entrenched global brand. Katie-Ann McDonough’s revival feels like a warning we have failed to heed.
The plot melds three engrossing but uneven stories. Mia (Kiran Sonia Sawar) is a Glaswegian driver offering “bargain-bucket therapy” to stray passengers as they fall out of nightclubs or need a ferry to the airport. Sean (Sean Delaney) is an overly trusting coder, riding the wave of the company’s success and Tyler (Shubham Saraf) is the juvenile, status-obsessed CEO, hell-bent on taking over the world.
Between the three of them they also multi-role thirteen other characters in a whirlwind ninety minutes in which it’s not always easy to keep up, especially with costume changes kept to an absolute minimum.
Similar stories
At the Edinburgh Fringe, MATTHEW HAWKINS reviews eight shows in a single day in one venue, all of which reward the spectator
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about a two-handed theatrical homage to jazz’s most mercurial musician
MAYER WAKEFIELD is gripped by a production dives rapidly from champagne-quaffing slick to fraying motormouth