Fancy a sophisticated evening combining family drama with science thrown in? Then this is the play for you.Coleman has been ubiquitous on UK TV recently, leading an extraordinary range of drama and comedy with gripping performances whilst never deviating from her homely, chirpy, best-friend-with-baggage persona. I'll happily watch her in anything. In Mosquitoes she plays a homely, chirpy, best-friend-with-baggage who is closely related to two brilliant scientists.
Following a traumatic incident Jenny (Coleman) a telesales agent, goes to stay with her sister, acclaimed scientist, Alice. A visit which coincides with a major scientific breakthrough in Alice’s work. She may head development of the Large Hadron Collider in Zurich but she also has plenty of personal problems to contend with. Olivia Williams turns in a complex, nuanced, engaging performance as this woman, missing her deranged husband, struggling to control and understand her troubled son and helping the demanding Jenny deal with a bereavement and her ensuing guilt.
Throughout we’re invited to compare Jenny’s emotional intelligence with Alice’s intellectual intelligence amidst accusations of stupidity aimed at each. Perhaps the conclusions are inevitable but the cast never let us forget that all the animosity stems from a deep sisterly love.
The action is staged with the audience seated on all four sides of the stage which gives the impression that we are staring at mosquitoes under a microscope or in a Petri dish; the minimal furniture is pulled into place by actors dressed as lab technicians. The highly charged family encounters embrace a dizzying range of issues including ageing, intergenerational conflict, sibling rivalry, the status of women in scientific research, computer hacking, on line-bullying, mental health, Quakerism, the Big Bang Theory and mistrust v celebration of science.
The play ought to collapse under the weight of all this but extraordinarily it doesn’t and these hefty topics actually thread naturally through the conversations of the family members facing a barrage of professional and domestic trauma.
I know this sounds rather hard work for the audience but it really isn’t. Scenes are regularly interspersed with manic lecture from Alice’s “mad-scientist” husband which drag a little, but apart from that it’s easy to emotionally engage with all the central characters. A sub plot involving the misadventures of Alice’s conflicted, adolescent nerd of a son, beautifully played by Joseph Quinn, are particularly relatable to and the issues surrounding a baby’s death are both intriguing and heart breaking. As is the mental deterioration of their cantankerous old mum, a delicious creation from Kirkwood and actor Amanda Boxer. She may be grappling with dementia now but she could once have won a Nobel Prize, as she's fond of telling everyone.
This production provides plenty to touch your heart and mind and I highly recommend it.
In theory the whole run is sold out but, having missed the press night, I bought a returned ticket five minutes before so you probably could too.
It’s always a pleasure to sit amidst an appreciative audience enjoying an uncomplicated fun night of theatre and that was certainly my experience at the Peacock this week where a touring production of the beloved movie musical ended its travels with a London run.